CSA scores (SMS)
CSA scores are the percentile rankings FMCSA’s Safety Measurement System (SMS) gives motor carriers from roadside inspection, crash and investigation data, used to decide which carriers to prioritize for interventions.
What is CSA scores (SMS)?
CSA (Compliance, Safety, Accountability) is FMCSA’s enforcement program; SMS is the measurement system inside it, in place since 2010. SMS groups inspection violations and crashes into safety categories, weights them by severity and how recent they are, and ranks each carrier against peers with a similar amount of exposure. A high percentile in a category means worse performance than most comparable carriers.
The scores drive interventions: warning letters, targeted roadside inspections and investigations. They are not a safety rating. A carrier’s safety rating (satisfactory, conditional or unsatisfactory) comes from a compliance review, not from SMS percentiles. Brokers and shippers still look at the public data when choosing carriers, so the scores affect how much freight a carrier gets.
What changes with the Enhanced SMS?
FMCSA finalized a revised methodology, the Enhanced Carrier Safety Measurement System, in a Federal Register notice on November 20, 2024. The approved changes rename the BASICs to "compliance categories"; group roughly 950 violations into violation groups; simplify severity weights from a 1 to 10 scale to 1 or 2; fold Controlled Substances/Alcohol into Unsafe Driving; split Vehicle Maintenance into Vehicle Maintenance and Vehicle Maintenance: Driver Observed; segment Driver Fitness and Hazardous Materials; and adjust the intervention thresholds.
FMCSA said a further notice would announce when the new methodology takes effect. As of September 2026 we have not found that notice in the Federal Register, so treat claims that the Enhanced SMS is already "live" with care and check FMCSA’s prioritization preview for how your carrier would score under it.
Frequently asked questions
What is a good CSA score?
Lower is better: a percentile shows how a carrier compares with similar carriers, so a score of 30 means it performs worse than about 30% of its peer group. FMCSA prioritizes carriers above intervention thresholds per category. Aim to stay well below them, and check that your data is complete and correct.
Are CSA scores the same as a safety rating?
No. SMS percentiles are a prioritization tool that changes monthly with new data. A safety rating is a formal determination that follows a compliance review. A carrier can have poor percentiles and a satisfactory rating, or no rating at all.
How long do violations stay in SMS?
Under the current methodology, inspections and crashes count for 24 months, with more recent events weighted more heavily. Clean inspections help, because measures are calculated relative to exposure. Incorrect data can be challenged through FMCSA’s DataQs system.
How can a carrier improve its CSA scores?
Fix the causes the violations point to: pre-trip inspections and maintenance for vehicle categories, hours-of-service discipline and accurate logs for HOS, and driver qualification files for driver fitness. Getting more clean roadside inspections also helps, and every incorrect record should be challenged. To plan a shift around the HOS limits, use the free hours of service calculator.
See CSA scores (SMS) in a real TMS
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