- USDOT number
- Permanent identifier assigned to a company operating commercial vehicles. Used as the primary key across federal datasets.
- MC number
- Operating authority number permitting transport of regulated commodities for compensation. Distinct from the USDOT number.
- FMCSA
- Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, the agency within the U.S. Department of Transportation responsible for commercial motor vehicle safety regulation.
- CSA
- Compliance, Safety, Accountability — the enforcement and compliance programme under which inspection data is collected and prioritised.
- SMS
- Safety Measurement System. Aggregates inspection and crash data into the seven BASIC categories and produces percentile rankings.
- BASIC
- Behaviour Analysis and Safety Improvement Category. One of seven groupings used to organise violations. See BASIC scores.
- Compliance review
- On-site examination of a carrier's records and practices. The process that produces a safety rating.
- Out-of-service order
- Prohibition on operating a specific vehicle or driver until a defect or violation is corrected. Recorded against the inspection.
- Out-of-service rate
- Proportion of inspections resulting in an out-of-service order, compared against a national average.
- Level I–VI inspection
- Inspection tiers of decreasing scope. Level I is the full driver and vehicle examination; higher-numbered levels are progressively narrower.
- BMC-91 / BMC-91X
- Forms filed by an insurer as evidence of public liability coverage.
- BMC-34
- Cargo insurance filing, required of household goods carriers.
- Broker authority
- Permission to arrange transportation without operating equipment. Held separately from carrier authority.
- Freight forwarder
- Party that assembles and consolidates shipments and assumes responsibility for their transport, often using other carriers.
- Double brokering
- Re-brokering a load to another carrier without authority or consent to do so. Complicates liability and cargo claims.
- Biennial update
- Mandatory refresh of registration information every two years, required even when nothing has changed.
- Reportable crash
- Crash meeting federal thresholds for fatality, injury requiring transport, or disabling damage requiring a tow.
- Interstate / intrastate
- Whether operation crosses state lines. Determines which body of regulation primarily applies.
- Peer group
- Set of carriers with comparable inspection volume against which percentiles are calculated.
- ELD
- Electronic logging device. Records driving time automatically for hours-of-service compliance.