Market Tracker glossary

Every term the interface uses, in the sense it uses it. Where a term has a fuller treatment, the definition links to it.

#Authority and filings

Operating authority: federal permission to operate as a for-hire motor carrier. A carrier can hold a USDOT registration and not hold active authority.

BI/PD: bodily injury and property damage liability. The filing a for-hire carrier's insurer makes with the federal government to evidence coverage. In Market Tracker, Active means a filing is on file and None means there is not one. See BI/PD filings, explained.

Form E: the state version of the BI/PD filing, made by an intrastate carrier's insurer with the state. Market Tracker reads Texas Form E filings from the Texas DMV, so a Texas intrastate carrier with no federal filing still counts as Active, marked TX Form E.

Filing history: the sequence of insurance filings on a carrier over time, showing who filed, when, and when coverage ended.

Rejected filing: a filing that was submitted and not accepted. It often precedes a lapse, which is why it drives its own Leads feed.

Reinstated authority: authority that was revoked and has been restored.

#Insurance

Writing paper: the insurer currently on file for a carrier. Used in the Insurer filter and the Trends panel of the same name. The Insurers tab ranks every writing paper and opens a profile for each.

X-date: the estimated date a carrier's current coverage expires and it goes back to market. Market Tracker estimates it from filing history; some estimates are more reliable than others. See What is an X-date in insurance?

Renewal basis: how an X-date was estimated. filing reads the first year from the filing's effective date; anniversary projects a continuous filing older than a year to its next policy anniversary; transaction reads it from a later transaction date. Shown on the Carrier File, in exports and by the connector.

Anniversary estimate: an X-date with the anniversary basis. Most insurers keep one BI/PD filing on file for years, so the policy still renews every year on its inception anniversary.

Live record (MOTUS): FMCSA's registration system since May 2026. The public filing feeds stopped carrying most renewal filings after the migration, so Market Tracker checks every carrier that shows active authority with no filing against the live record daily.

Loss run: a claims history report, obtained from the carrier's current insurer. Market Tracker can generate the request; it does not hold claims data, and no public source does.

#Safety

BASIC: the seven behaviour categories the federal Safety Measurement System groups violations into. See CSA BASIC scores, explained.

ISS: Inspection Selection System. A published federal algorithm that sorts carriers into three bands (Inspect, Optional, Pass) used at roadside to decide whether to pull a truck in. Market Tracker shows an estimate, and labels which SMS population it was scored in: interstate, or intrastate non-hazmat. See What is an ISS score?

Risk tier: Market Tracker's own bucketing of a carrier's loss exposure. Unrated means there was not enough inspection data to rate the carrier; it does not mean low risk.

#Footprint and operations

Fleet size: power-unit count from the carrier's census record, bucketed.

Radius: the operating radius the carrier declared.

Operates in: the states a carrier has actually been inspected in, as opposed to where it says it operates.

Reach: a bucketed summary of that observed footprint.

Filing mismatch: the declared radius disagrees with the observed footprint. Shown as Declared ≠ observed.

Cargo: the cargo classifications a carrier declared.

#Signals

Reincarnation: a carrier that shares identifiers with an older, now-inactive carrier. The filter's own note puts it as shares identifiers with an older, now-inactive carrier. It is a signal to investigate. See Chameleon carriers.

Shopper: how strongly a carrier looks like it is currently shopping for coverage. Shown as a column on Leads.

Shared contact: a phone number or email address that many carriers list, marked shared ×N in the grid, on Leads and in exports. Usually a registration service, a permit filer or a fleet's central office.

MCS-150 overdue: a USDOT number that reads inactive because the biennial MCS-150 update was missed, on a carrier whose operating authority and BI/PD filing are live. The carrier is operating: the Carriers grid's default view lists it as Inactive USDOT · MCS-150 overdue (never as active), the Status filter offers it as its own value, and Leads and the lead pulls include it with this badge.

#App concepts

View: a saved filter set on the Carriers grid, promoted to a tab, optionally with email alerts. See Saved views and email alerts.

All carriers: the default view, meaning active carriers with a BI/PD filing, plus the MCS-150 overdue carriers. Not the whole census.

Watch List: carriers you have chosen to track, each baselined on the day you added it. See Watch List.

Book: your agency's own book of business, imported from an AMS export and matched to the census. See Book of business.

Peek: the summary drawer that opens when you click a grid row anywhere other than the USDOT.

#Identifiers

USDOT number: the federal registration number for a motor carrier. The primary key everywhere in Market Tracker.

MC number: a docket number tied to operating authority. Searchable, and resolves to the same carrier as its USDOT.

VIN: vehicle identification number. Decoded on the Equipment tab of a Carrier File.