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AMTA E-News
January 2010
Partners in
Compliance Update
As a joint
venture between the Alberta Motor Transport Association, Alberta
Transportation, and the Workers Compensation Board, the Partners
In Compliance Program is designed to address the issues of
regulatory non-compliance and its costly repercussions. The
purpose of PIC is not only to assist
carriers in developing their own internal regulatory compliance
and maintenance program, it is designed to reduce the financial
and human costs of incidents through diligent, ongoing
self-maintenance practices. The Partners In Compliance program
offers participating carriers realistic, achievable goals that
guarantee success if established benchmarks are met.
To become a PIC member, a
company must have passed a recent external
NSC audit with a high mark (the cost of the audit may be
covered by the PIC program if the mark
is very high), and successfully complete the Certificate of
Recognition (COR) external audit. As
well, companies that apply for membership in the Partners
program must not have been on monitoring for a full year.
Following this, an extensive interview with the company
executive, safety director and maintenance manager is held. The
process concludes with a recommendation to the
PIC Membership Committee, with final
approval from the PIC Advisory
Council. PIC will endeavor to work
with the companies that may not currently meet the standards.
The emphasis of the Partners program is focused on the human
factor (i.e., driver, safety director, dispatcher, maintenance
manager and company executive), as well as on compliance.
Launched in 2007 with 14 truck and two bus companies, the
remodeled PIC program had an excellent
start. Despite considerable interest shown by many companies,
due mainly to the advantage of being able to completely bypass
the provincial weigh scales 98% of the time, and despite
continued work with the government and industry to keep the
program growing, some of the interested companies did not feel
that the benefits of the program were sufficient to outweigh the
added effort and exposure that were required.
On the 23rd of June, 2009 the Minister of Transportation Mr.
Luke Ouellette, formerly announced that the following privileges
were available to Partners In Compliance members.
-
An “Excellent”
rating on members Carrier Profile
-
Unlimited
access to Carriers Profiles at no cost
-
Elimination of
the Government fee for Driver Abstracts
-
Removal of
fees for the CVIP permits
-
Automatic
access to LCV renewals (PIC
good standing required)
Currently there
are twenty two companies in the PIC
program, including two school bus companies that do not utilize
transponders as they are not required to report to the weigh
scales. There are approximately eighteen hundred transponders in
service with the twenty two trucking company members. To the end
of November 2009, 150,889 PIC member
trucks were given green light passes at the Alberta Inspection
Stations, while 4,011 were called in for inspection. The program
has received significant attention and satisfaction from drivers
and we have placed PIC signs at all Alberta scales to
advertise the program.
The Minister of Transport has approved the installation of the
transponder technology in the remaining four scales in
Alberta which
will then result in all sixteen scales being equipped for member
bypass privileges. This work is underway, and completion is
scheduled for early in 2010.
On a related note, the British Columbia “Green Light” program, now
renamed the “Weigh-To-Go” program should start allowing
PIC members 95% bypass privileges. It
is also the intention of the PIC
Director to meet with other jurisdictions to obtain reciprocal
agreements, such as the Northwest States
NORPASS program. Further, Mr. Kranenburg continues to
work with the Saskatchewan transportation department in an
effort to have that province endorse this excellence in the
trucking industry initiative.
Further inquiries should be directed to:
www.partnersincompliance.com and/or to:
Lane Kranenburg, Director,
(403) 214-34231 OR 1-800-267-1003
Lorri Christensen, Administrator
(403) 214-3430 OR 1-800-267-1003
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