How New Mexico State Police uses real-time data to reduce commercial vehicle crashes

KEY IDEAS:

• The New Mexico State Police’s Commercial Vehicle Enforcement (CVE) unit struggled with delayed reporting, siloed data, and limited cross-agency visibility, making it difficult to identify risks and respond proactively.
• These gaps reduced situational awareness and forced CVE personnel to rely on outdated information, limiting the impact of enforcement efforts.
• By integrating data across systems and agencies, NMSP-CVE created a unified, real-time view of commercial vehicle activity and incidents.
• With unified data and live alerts, CVE personnel can identify high-risk drivers, detect crash hotspots, and take proactive enforcement actions,

"I can see where accidents are happening in real time. I can make an actionable decision to pinpoint my resources and try to tend to those areas."

Maj. Joseph Romero

New Mexico State Police, Commercial Vehicle Enforcement

NEW MEXICO — Fatal crashes involving commercial vehicles are on the rise in New Mexico, climbing from 57 in 2017 to 79 in 2022. As the state saw its fatal crash rate rise by 53% in that time frame, the New Mexico State Police Commercial Vehicle Enforcement unit (NMSP-CVE) faced growing pressure to combat worrying trends on the road.

The NMSP-CVE is responsible for reducing commercial vehicle crashes on New Mexico’s roadways. But historically, inefficient systems for managing and reporting data have hindered the agency’s ability to police proactively.

“The longer it takes for us to compile that data, the issue becomes more compounded, and you're never able to make a meaningful difference because you can’t be proactive,” NMSP-CVE Maj. Joseph Romero told us.

But things are turning a corner for the NMSP-CVE. In 2024, the agency secured a federal CMV safety grant to invest in Peregrine, a data integration platform that harmonizes and optimizes information from disparate source systems. Now, New Mexico’s CVE personnel can proactively allocate resources based on historical trends and live alerts.

“I can see where accidents are happening in real time,” Romero said. “I can make an actionable decision to pinpoint my resources and try to tend to those areas.”

Here’s how the New Mexico State Police used real-time data to overcome cross-jurisdictional reporting delays, identify risks, and reduce commercial vehicle crashes.

🔎 WHAT IS COMMERCIAL VEHICLE ENFORCEMENT (CVE)? Commercial vehicle enforcement (CVE) refers to law enforcement efforts focused on improving safety and compliance for commercial motor vehicles, including crash prevention, inspections, and regulatory enforcement.

Why delayed crash reporting limits commercial vehicle enforcement

New Mexico is the fifth-largest U.S. state by land area and home to more than 100 law enforcement agencies. With fewer than 120 officers, the NMSP-CVE relies on information from other agencies to determine where to allocate personnel and resources.

But ineffective systems have hindered that cross-agency cooperation. Before Peregrine, the NMSP-CVE lacked timely access to crash and traffic data from other agencies in New Mexico.

“As a state, we don’t share all of these data points for crashes,” Romero explained. “We hope that [other agencies] get all the crashes into NMDOT [New Mexico Department of Transportation], and we’re hoping that they are accurate.”

READ MORE → Interagency Data Sharing: Overcoming Barriers To Drive Collaboration

Upon receiving crash reports from other agencies — often months after the incidents happened — CVE personnel had to manually review each report to see if the incident involved a CMV and met criteria for a reportable crash. By the time they gathered the information they needed, it would be too late to deploy resources and make a difference. Romero said some of the crash reports coming across his desk are already a year old.

Delayed crash reporting causes agencies to act on stale information, rather than taking proactive enforcement measures to keep roads safer. To develop data-informed crash reduction strategies, the NMSP-CVE needed secure, real-time crash data sharing across jurisdictions.

🔑 KEY TAKEAWAY: Without access to real-time, cross-jurisdictional crash data, agencies can’t make strategic, proactive enforcement decisions.

How real-time data sharing improves cross-agency visibility

Cross-agency data integration ensures all coordinating organizations have a shared view of incidents, trends, and priorities. Instead of guessing best strategies based on outdated information, unified data helps stakeholders make informed, proactive decisions.

To improve cross-agency visibility and decision making, the NMSP-CVE turned to Peregrine as its data integration solution.

🔎 WHAT IS DATA INTEGRATION IN LAW ENFORCEMENT? Data integration unifies information from historical systems like CAD and RMS, real-time inputs, and partner agencies’ databases in a single platform. This streamlines data sharing between coordinating agencies.

Peregrine breaks down information silos and supports stronger interagency collaboration by joining data from participating agencies' various systems, including:

• Computer-aided dispatch (CAD) systems
• Records management systems (RMS)
• Traffic and criminal software (TraCS) and other traffic citations systems
• License plate recognition (LPR) systems
• Smart roadside data systems and other sensor data

Peregrine provides the NMSP-CVE with real-time crash data across jurisdictions — long before any reports come in — by sharing and integrating data from other participating agencies.

“I can constantly monitor it,” Romero said. "If [the other agencies are] on board, and their data’s already there, I get to analyze it in real time.”

CASE STUDY → Pinellas County: Catching a Hit-And-Run Suspect With Real-Time Data Sharing

By unifying data from the NMSP-CVE and partner agencies on a single collective platform, Peregrine improves situational awareness for CVE personnel and enables them to efficiently identify, track, and address CMV trends across the state.

Instead of waiting months for finalized reports, agencies can now share and act on crash data as incidents unfold. This shared visibility helps coordinating agencies identify patterns and respond in real time.

🔎 HOW DOES CROSS-AGENCY DATA SHARING IMPROVE LAW ENFORCEMENT OPERATIONS?

• Creates a unified operational picture for all agencies
• Increases common situational awareness
• Improves real-time communication and coordination
• Enables proactive, data-informed decision making

How real-time crash data helps NMSP-CVE identify hotspots and deploy resources

CVE personnel can now access critical data from all participating agencies in a single, unified view. So when a partner agency is dispatched to any CMV-related incident, Peregrine shares that information to NMSP-CVE immediately. With real-time visibility in place, personnel can act quickly on emerging risks.

“If dispatch enters it in and it’s classified as a commercial motor vehicle, and all of a sudden we start seeing these little dots starting to drop everywhere, then we have a hotspot,” Romero said. “Now I have specialized teams and units under my command that I can deploy to those areas to be able to make a difference.”

How unified data enables proactive enforcement decisions

Data sharing uses data from partner agencies to notify the NMSP-CVE when unfit CMV drivers — such as those with ineligible commercial driver’s licenses, too many violations to legally drive a CMV, or records of evading ports of entry — get pulled over.

“When we take the drivers and companies who are ineligible and shouldn’t be on the roadway, we make our roadways safer,” Romero said.

💡 REAL-WORLD IMPACT: Unified data enables the NMSP-CVE to identify high-risk drivers in real time and take immediate enforcement action.

How real-time alerts improve commercial vehicle enforcement

Peregrine users can set up live alerts based on data queried from their source systems and other participating agencies’ systems. Peregrine enables NMSP-CVE personnel to monitor key risk indicators across the state, including:

• CMV crash rates statewide and within specific districts, counties, and regions
• USDOT numbers and their previous contacts with participating law enforcement agencies throughout the state
• How many times a CMV has violated federal, state, or local laws
• Historical law enforcement contact records and connections for all CMV drivers, carriers, vehicles, and USDOT numbers
• Commercial driver’s license (CDL) drivers and carriers who are frequently in contact with law enforcement

💡 HOW IT WORKS: Real-time data from partner agencies is integrated into a single platform, analyzed for patterns, and used to generate alerts that guide enforcement decisions.

Using that data, the system automatically pings CVE personnel with real-time alerts when:

• The CMV crash rate spikes in a specific region, creating a “hotspot”
• A CMV driver who was previously flagged for driving without a valid CDL is stopped by an officer from a participating agency
• A trucking company that was previously flagged for violations is caught operating with the same USDOT number (and often under a different business name — these are called “chameleon carriers”)
• A driver is caught using a foreign CDL that was previously confiscated

Peregrine can also disseminate alerts through its mobile app. These live alerts facilitate timelier incident response and better situational awareness for the NMSP-CVE, improving proactive commercial vehicle enforcement capabilities.

🔎 HOW DO REAL-TIME ALERTS HELP PREVENT COMMERCIAL VEHICLE CRASHES? Real-time alerts notify personnel of high-risk drivers, repeat violations, and crash hotspots, enabling proactive enforcement before incidents escalate.

“Before Peregrine, there was no alerting,” Romero said. “If we can have something running in the background and helping our officers make their decisions by those alerts, I think that you’ll see a huge difference.”

This allows the NMSP-CVE to move from reactive enforcement to proactive intervention, addressing risks before they lead to crashes.

🔑 KEY TAKEAWAY: Real-time data sharing and alerts allow the New Mexico State Police CVE unit to identify risks earlier, deploy resources faster, and prevent crashes before they occur.

How real-time data helped reduce crashes in Clayton, NM

Romero recalled a scenario in which state representatives asked his unit to deploy in Clayton, New Mexico, which was becoming a hotspot for CMV crashes and port runners, or commercial drivers evading ports of entry. Romero leveraged Peregrine, which allows CVE officials to compare historical trends with developing situations to determine whether an intervention was effective.

• To inform operational strategy, Romero used Peregrine to analyze the previous six months of CMV data in Clayton.
• His CVE unit then went to Clayton for a weeklong impact operation.
• After the operation, Romero kept an eye on new data coming in from the area to see if the intervention had made a difference.

“And all of a sudden, for the next three or four months, there were zero crashes,” he told us. “We were able to run the data after the fact, and there were less crashes and less port runners.”

💡 REAL-WORLD IMPACT: After analyzing crash data and deploying targeted enforcement, the New Mexico State Police reduced commercial vehicle crashes in Clayton to zero for three to four months.

How agencies can fund real-time data integration for CVE

For agencies looking to replicate these results, funding is often the first step. The High Priority Innovative Technology Deployment (ITD) grant provides a direct path to funding data integration initiatives to support real-time crash data sharing.

Each year, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) administers the ITD grant to support tech development in the CMV safety space. U.S. states and territories implementing CMV safety programs can leverage the $2 million discretionary ITD grant to support:

• Safer, more productive motor carriers, CMVs, and drivers
• Data-driven initiatives to create more effective CMV safety programs
• Secure, streamlined sharing of commercial vehicle data within and between states and FMCSA
• More efficient CVE operations through the automated collection, transfer, and display of data
• Reduced costs associated with enforcing federal and state safety regulations

🧠 WHAT IS THE ITD GRANT? The High Priority Innovative Technology Deployment grant funds data integration technology for commercial vehicle safety entities.

The ITD grant awards up to $2 million per project per eligible agency. Peregrine enables real-time technology integration for CMV safety, which falls within the ITD grant’s eligible use parameters.

Peregrine can help your agency’s CMV safety program secure real-time data sharing and integration through ITD grant funding. Contact us to learn how we can support your grant application.

Peregrine is built on AWS GovCloud.