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State FCWD User Interface

State FCWD User Interface

The State FCWD User Interface (UI) provides State Driver Licensing Agencies (SDLAs) with a mechanism to meet the transmission, data quality and timeliness requirements in Title 49 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) §384.107, §384.208 and §384.209 for convictions and withdrawals on foreign Commercial Driver License (CDL) holders and foreign drivers required to have a CDL. This data is maintained in the Foreign Conviction and Withdrawal Database (FCWD). Additionally, providing reporting tools for SDLAs to reconcile the data against its records and to track compliance.

Problem Statement

OBXtek operates the Foreign Conviction Withdrawal Database under contract with the Department of Transportation (DoT) Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) as a sub-contractor. FMCSA recommends that States transmit convictions, withdrawals, and negates electronically via CDLIS transactions. The infrastructure exists for Mexican drivers. Receipt of electronic data at the FCWD for Canadian drivers was deployed May 22, 2016. Until then, Canadian data could only be sent via paper. However, the FCWD continues to receive high volume of Canadian paper convictions and withdrawals. Conviction and withdrawal data for foreign drivers other than Canadian and Mexican can currently only be sent via paper.

The Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act (MAP-21) requires SDLAs to exclusively send data electronically. However, there are not yet corresponding FMCSA regulations to support the requirement.

As a result of the system and regulation changes still needed and limits in the SDLAs themselves, states continue to send paper documents. In 2015, a large percentage (49.55%) of paper documents sent to the FCWD did not meet the CDLIS State Procedures Manual (SPM) requirements and were returned to the State of Conviction (SOC)/State of Withdrawal (SOW) for correction. Those that do meet the requirements and are added to the FCWD often do not meet the timeliness requirements in the FMCSRs.

These State issues of data quality and timeliness created a lag between the time the driver was convicted of a violation and the time the conviction and any related withdrawal are received and added to the FCWD. It also delayed any federally required FMCSA disqualifications. As a result, unsafe drivers continued to drive on our roads, when they would otherwise have been disqualified by FMCSA from driving in the United States. Sending invalid paper documents and valid paper documents outside the timeliness requirements in the FMCSRs is a State compliance issue and a national safety issue. Providing them a User Interface for the SDLAs to enter the data accurately from the start, reduces the time it takes to add the data to the FCWD and if needed, disqualify the foreign driver from driving on our nation’s highways.

Performance Objectives

Provide Support, Operations & Maintenance in Reducing the number of paper documents sent to the FCWD. As SDLAs are enrolled and use the State FCWD User Interface, the number of paper documents sent to the FCWD should be reduced. OBXtek also expects a reduction in paper as states implement the electronic reporting of Canadian convictions and withdrawals. We can account for that reduction by reporting the number of transactions received electronically. Reduce the number of paper documents returned to the SDLAs due to data quality issues (they don’t meet the CDLIS requirements for data quality or they were sent on Non CMV/Non CDL drivers). Title 49 Section §384.107 incorporates the CDLIS SPM into the FMCSRs. These procedures and the conviction requirements in the CDLIS specification are used to determine data quality. Provide SDLAs with a mechanism to meet the 10-day reporting requirement (timeliness) in 49 CFR §384.209 for reporting convictions on foreign CDL holders and foreign drivers required to have a CDL. These are convictions that are not sent using the CDLIS electronic transactions. Although the focus is to reduce the time lag due to mailing, the new FCWD reports can track timeliness for all State FCWD data.

Outcome

OBXtek’s approach and resolution of the problem statement was the development, testing, and deployment of the State FCWD User Interface. Contributing to the success of the outcome was buy-in from State stakeholders who assisted in User Acceptance Testing (UAT). Upon testing and acceptance by the user community, OBXtek deployed the User Interface to full production, making it available to all State Agencies in the effort to completely eliminate paper submissions to the FCWD; a requirement set by FMCSA with a target date of mid-2024. Once State’s enroll in this process, paper will no longer be required. Lastly, the solution is enterprise and requires no extra software or hardware updates by the States.

State FCWD UI Enrollment Process

As an overview, all users must have a cdlis.dot.gov user account to access the State FCWD UI. The Account Request Form (ARF) grants access to a cdlis.dot.gov account. The System Access Form (SAF) grants access to the State FCWD UI. 

Users shall contact FMCSAsupport@obxtek.com requesting access to the State FCWD User Interface. The CDLIS Gateway Help Desk will verify if the user already has a cdlis.dot.gov account and has not been disabled for over a year. 

Following of user status, the CDLIS Gateway Help Desk provides the user with the appropriate forms to complete enrollment. 

If the user requires cdlis.dot.gov access:

  • The CDLIS Gateway Help Desk will send the (ARF) to be completed by the user.

  • After completing the ARF form, the user must submit their request to a designated CDLIS Organization Coordinator (OC) / Division Administrator. The OC is responsible for verifying the user’s requested access to CDLIS via the FMCSA Gateway, and that the data will only be used for official purposes.  

  • Once the ARF is completed and signed by the OC and user, it is submitted to FMCSA Technical Support at: (617) 494-3003 or email to FMCTechSup@dot.gov

If the help desk verifies that the user has a cdlis.dot.gov account: 

  • The CDLIS Gateway Help Desk will provide the user with a System Access Form (SAF), to be completed for signature by the OC / Division Administrator and the user.  

  • Once completed, the user sends the System Access Form to FMCSAsupport@obxtek.com for processing. 

Once the ARF is approved by FMCSA Technical Support, a list is submitted to the CDLIS Gateway Help Desk with approved users, allowing the Gateway to create the cdlis.dot.gov accounts. 

The confirmed list of approved users is cross checked with the System Access Form submitted to FMCSA CDLIS Gateway Help Desk, see ‘Obtaining and Completing the System Access Form.’  After the list of approved users is verified, the account access is granted to the State FCWD UI.  

For first time cdlis.dot.gov and State FCWD UI users: 

  • Each user created in Cdlis.dot.gov for access to the State FCWD User Interface will receive a Welcome to CDLIS email and an email from the FMCSA CDLIS Gateway Help Desk confirming access has been granted and account created.  

  • The cdlis.dot.gov ‘Welcome to CDLIS’ email will have a link which will redirect the user to the website to create their password. 

  • The user will then receive a “Welcome to the State FCWD UI” email, which includes the URL to the system, which can be accessed using the same password created for the user’s cdlis.dot.gov account. Please note that the ‘Welcome to CDLIS” process must be completed prior to accessing the State FCWD UI as this process generates the password to access the UI system.