Online Instructional Tools for Motor Carriers

Commercial motor carrier customers on Kentucky highways must register and pay taxes for licensing and credentialing requirements. The Kentucky Transportation Cabinet (KYTC) provides an online Motor Carrier Portal that offers information and instructions on meeting these requirements, but customers have increasingly resorted to calling into KYTC’s motor carrier help desk, thereby straining limited personnel resources. The Kentucky Transportation Center (KTC) coordinated with KYTC to develop a series of online instructional videos that can better assist customers with applying for and meeting credentialing requirements. KTC researchers used a three-phase approach to determine the feasibility and requirements for instructional videos. First, they investigated the use of online videos provided by other state departments of transportation for motor carrier customers. Second, KTC collected and analyzed over 305,000 customer service records to better understand the tax categories and key words commonly associated with high call volumes and durations. Finally, researchers interviewed KYTC customer service representatives who interacted with motor carrier customers to learn about common interaction themes. Using this approach, KTC successfully developed three priority instructional videos for KYTC including (1) IRP Requirements and Account Creation, (2) KYU Account Creation, and (3) KYU Account Reactivation.