Data methodology

Public record sources

United States carrier information comes from public Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration records. The codebase ingests the FMCSA Motor Carrier Census from the U.S. Department of Transportation Socrata dataset and queries FMCSA sources for operating authority, Licensing and Insurance filings, safety, roadside inspection and crash information.

The public carrier directory republishes available federal identifiers, home-base details, authority, insurance, fleet and aggregate safety fields. Federal source records can lag real-world changes.

Platform safety score

The CarrierReports score is derived from available FMCSA safety and compliance inputs. Safety components use vehicle out-of-service rate, driver out-of-service rate and crash rate. Compliance components use operating authority, BIPD insurance, MCS-150 currency and out-of-service order status. Missing safety components are excluded rather than replaced with proxy values. Member feedback is reported separately and is not blended into the FMCSA composite.

Member-contributed reports

Platform members can file reports about parties they worked with. Public carrier pages show only aggregate report counts and ratings; report text, the reporting company and dispute correspondence are not published.

Refresh timing

Carrier safety data is refreshed on a daily schedule, the FMCSA census bulk ingest runs nightly, and a census change ingest runs monthly. A carrier profile may also be refreshed on demand when opened. Timing at the source and failed or rate-limited requests can delay what is shown.