CALGARY — Building on the momentum gained since its resurrection, Alberta’s Partners in Compliance (PIC) program recently added a few more perks to entice new membership.

The program’s director, Lane Kranenburg, has been working hard behind the scenes with the provincial government to provide as many benefits as possible to participating members.

Although not all the new changes are set in the system, Transport Minister Luke Ouellette let the good news slip at the recent Alberta Motor Transport Assocation annual conference.

The first is an "excellent" rating on a fleet’s Carrier Profile, and the second is the elimination of the $11 government fee for pulling a driver abstract, although the registry office fee will remain.

While $11 doesn’t seem like much on the surface, Kranenburg points out that "if you have hundreds of driver abstracts to pull that $11 starts to add up."

The biggest benefit, according to Kranenburg, is still the quarterly operational reviews that must be conducted and reported to the PIC office, as it allows companies a proactive opportunity to spot any inefficiencies. 

The AMTA’s Kranenburg is close
to taking PIC western-wide.

As well as the new benefits, members of PIC are offered 98 percent weigh scale bypass privileges, no cost access to their Carrier Profiles, and permit fee elimination at licensed CVIP inspection shops.

"The industry perks are up because they can now save real dollars," Kranenburg tells todaystrucking.com. "And with the ‘excellent’ rating on the carrier profile, there’s nowhere else in Canada that offers that."

To become a PIC member, a company must have a recent external NSC audit with a high passing mark, as well as a Certificate of Recognition (COR) audit. After the audits are complete, an interview is held with company executives, the safety director and the manintenance manager. After which a recommendation is made to the PIC Membership Committee. 

"The cost of the audit may be picked up by the PIC program with the proviso that they have a passing mark, and PIC will work with companies that currently may not meet standards," says Kranenburg.

The self-governing PIC program originally floundered shortly after its launch in 1995 because participating carriers weren’t seeing the kind of scale bypass benefits that were originally promised — and in some cases fleets reported targeted enforcement in jurisdictions outside Alberta.

The program fizzled and was left for dead until it was resurrected in 2007 by a handful of committed AMTA and government officials. Former police officer, and founder of Lyal Customs Carriers, Kranenburg was tapped to oversee the rebuilding process.

The initial benefit of having scale bypass 98 percent of the time was enough to bring on board 16 different companies, which included transponders in 1,700 trucks, but Kranenburg says a handful of large carriers were waiting for these additional benefits — including four large fleets that were ready to go April 23.

With all the benefits in place, Kranenburg now has two objectives: get reciprocal agreements with other jurisdictions and build the membership.

The Alberta PIC program is close to having a reciprocal agreement in place with B.C.’s Green Light Transportation System, and is looking to get something worked out with the NORPASS program that’s operational in the U.S. northwest.

Alberta is also working with representatives in Saskatchewan and Manitoba to drum up interest in creating similar programs in their provinces.

"We’ve worked hard for three years to get the program where we are at now and I’m happy with what we’ve done," adds Kranenburg. "Now we just have to get as many people as possible involved, including the oilfield and bus companies, not just the heavy trucks."