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Statement of Need: The motor carrier industry requires 24-hour activities to meet the operational demands of a healthy U.S. economy. Growth in long-haul, regional, overnight, and local operations is increasing with the growth of the U.S. economy. Therefore, night work, shift work, and irregular work schedules will continue to be commonplace. With this growth, the scientific knowledge about sleep, sleep disorders, circadian physiology, fatigue, and performance decrements has also grown. Some of the scientific knowledge has indicated that medium-and heavy-duty truck and bus drivers may experience performance-impairing fatigue from sleep loss resulting from current motor carrier duty and operational practices. One of the purposes of this rulemaking is to incorporate as much of the scientific knowledge as possible into the applicable regulations. In addition, industry, safety advocates, and individuals have told the FHWA that the current regulations constrain productivity, are confusing, and focus enforcement on sloppy recordkeeping practices rather than on violations of the underlying hours-of-service rules. Therefore, another purpose of the rulemaking is to establish enforceable, consistent, and clear work duty periods and sleep requirements for all types of operations.

Summary of the Legal Basis: Title 49 United States Code, Section 31502 allows the Secretary of Transportation to prescribe maximum hours-of-service regulations for employees of motor carriers when needed to promote the safety of operations. Section 408 of the ICC Termination Act of 1995 (Pub. L. 104-88, December 29, 1995) requires the Federal Highway Administration to issue an advance notice of proposed rulemaking, a notice of proposed rulemaking, and a final rule dealing with a variety of fatigue-related issues pertaining to commercial motor vehicle safety (including 8 hours of continuous sleep after 10 hours of driving, loading and unloading operations, automated and tamper-proof recording devices, rest and recovery cycles, fatigue and stress in longer combination vehicles, fitness for duty, and other appropriate regulatory and enforcement countermeasures for reducing fatigue-related incidents and increasing driver-alertness).

Alternatives: One alternative is to continue the current rules. Other alternatives may include replacing the current daily maximum 15-hour on-duty, maximum 10-hour-driving, minimum 8-hour-off-duty periods and weekly 60-hour-in-seven-day sliding week with an alternative set of rules based upon scientific knowledge and submitted comments. The FHWA will consider "one-size-does-not-fit-all" types of regulations. The FHWA will consider different regulations for different types of drivers, operations, or classification of vehicles. Finally, the FHWA will consider modifying the information collection burdens that have been placed upon the motor carrier industry, including the following types of record keeping methods. 1. Reducing the required items on the record of duty status (log book), 2. Adding automated on-board recording devices to commercial motor vehicles, 3. Adding global positioning system on-board recording devices to commercial motor vehicles. 4. Eliminating all FHWA hours-of-service record keeping requirements while relying exclusively on the duplicative hours-of-service record keeping system of records required by the U.S. Department of Labor under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, as amended. The FHWA is exploring the feasibility of conducting a negotiated rulemaking to revise the drivers' hours-of-service rules and has hired two convenors for that purpose. Until that process is complete and a decision is made concerning negotiated rulemaking, the FHWA will continue to move forward with its traditional rulemaking process which began with the publication of an advance notice of proposed rulemaking in the Federal Register on November 5, 1996. The neutral convenors will interview affected interests, including drivers, motor carriers, safety advocacy groups, enforcement officials, insurers, and others. The convenors will, among other things, examine the potential for adequate and balanced representation of these varied interests on an advisory committee that would be convened to negotiate the regulations. the convenors will then submit a written report of findings and recommendations to the agency. The convenors' report will provide a basis for the FHWA to decide whether to proceed with negotiated rulemaking, and, if so, to determine the scope of the issues the committee would be charged with addressing. In the alternative, the FHWA may decide to proceed with traditional informal rulemaking. Toward this latter end, the agency continues to consider and evaluate various options for revising the hours-of-service rules. Should the FHWA decide to proceed with a negotiated rulemaking process, the agency would follow the procedures set forth in the Negotiated Rulemaking Act of 1996, 5 U.S.C. 561 et seq. This would include the establishment of a negotiating committee under the Federal Advisory Committee Act (5 U.S.C.Appendix 2), and a Federal Register notice setting forth full particulars about the process and public participation.

Anticipated Costs and Benefits: Undetermined. A cost-benefit analysis completed in 1981 and based upon a 1978 notice of proposed rulemaking calculated national costs between $10.6 and $11.5 billion with possible societal benefits of about $450 million, a benefit to cost ratio under one. (In 1997 dollars, this would be national costs between $20.67 and $22.43 billion with possible societal benefits of about $878 million.) A new cost-benefit analysis is underway and will be conducted and reported in compliance with OMB Circular A-94, "Discount Rates to be Used in Evaluating Time-Distributed Costs and Benefits." The FHWA believes it can develop a rule with a benefit-to-cost ratio of more than one for this rulemaking. The FHWA is planning to develop a rule that will produce a "win-win" outcome (increased safety and unchanged or increased productivity). The FHWA will also attempt to analyze additional costs resulting from higher transportation rates and disruptions on ongoing business operations, though these costs will be difficult to assess. These might include rates and disruptions to just-in-time deliveries, manufacturing, warehousing, distribution, wholesale and retail deliveries, and individual participants' lives (e.g., increases in consumer prices and road congestion).

Risks: The U.S. Department of Transportation's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's databases show fatigue as a contributing factor in 306 to 1,163 annual police-reported crashes for all vehicles nationally. Some scientific research suggests the number may be closer to 364 to 4,070 of all crashes (police-reported and non-police-reported). Fatigue is increasingly becoming the focus of possible causes contributing to all crashes. Driver reports of being tired and sleepy to the point of incapacity are not uncommon, and it is reasonable, given the sheer volume of motor carrier traffic, to expect drowsy, unalert drivers to be a factor in future crashes.