UMass Amherst Wins Grant to Drive Forward Vehicle Safety Improvements

UMassSafe, a traffic safety research program of the UMass Transportation Center, has received $624,299 in funding from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) for fiscal year 2024. The grant from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law will help improve commercial motor vehicle safety, enforcement and outreach efforts.

“The funding will support projects that promote partnerships among the different agencies that work on commercial motor vehicle safety and share best practices in the Eastern Service Center region,” says Robin Riessman, director of UMassSafe. “Crashes for commercial motor vehicles (CMVs), just like for passenger cars, have increased over the last several years. And crashes that involve commercial vehicles tend to be more severe. So [this grant] is to help the state agencies that try to address those crashes.”

One such project is the Northeast Commercial Vehicle Safety Summit. This year’s summit, which is funded by last year’s FMCSA grant, will be held Nov. 13-14 at the Sheraton in Springfield. Reissman says the summit “brings together people that don’t usually get together to work on the common good,” including commercial motor vehicle companies, law enforcement and universities.

The funding will also help expand the Commercial Safety Technical Assistance Center, a website that shares best practices and provides all the resources from the summit, as well as support a quarterly meeting of researchers and stakeholders to collaborate on challenges and best practices.

UMass Amherst’s funding is among more than $140 million FMCSA is awarding to states and other entities through the High Priority grant under its mission of reducing crashes, injuries and fatalities involving large trucks and buses on U.S. roadways.

“This essential funding provided through the High Priority grant program targets unsafe driving through highly visible traffic enforcement and supports research impacting CMV safety,” said FMCSA Deputy Administrator, Vinn White. “We’re proud that these grants can increase public awareness and education and help meet FMCSA’s mission of improving safety on our roadways nationwide.”