The score that decides
who gets inspected.

The Inspection Selection System (ISS) is FMCSA’s 1–100 recommendation shown to roadside enforcement when they run a carrier’s DOT number: 1–49 Pass (low inspection priority), 50–74 Optional (officer’s discretion), 75–100 Inspect (inspection recommended). It’s derived from the carrier’s Safety Measurement System (SMS) data — BASIC percentiles and alerts — or, for carriers with little recent inspection history, from data sufficiency rules. A high ISS means more roadside inspections, more delays, and more chances for violations to compound.

Enter your USDOT number above — the tool returns an estimated ISS score with the Pass / Optional / Inspect band, free. The official number is visible only to enforcement and to the carrier itself through the FMCSA portal (login required); commercial services like CAB sell access to estimates. This checker computes the estimate from the same public SMS data using FMCSA’s published ISS algorithm.

The estimate is computed with FMCSA’s published ISS algorithm over the public SMS dataset and calibrated against observed scores — in validation it lands within a few points of the actual number and matches the Pass/Optional/Inspect band for the overwhelming majority of carriers. Because FMCSA withholds two BASICs (Crash Indicator and HazMat) from public data, individual scores can drift — treat the estimate as directional and the band as reliable.

Because ISS isn’t only a safety ranking — it’s also an inspection-targeting system. Carriers with little or no recent inspection history get scored on data sufficiency: the algorithm deliberately elevates them so officers generate inspection data. That’s why a clean, new carrier can sit in the Inspect band. The result card shows the basis — safety performance vs. insufficient data — so you can tell which case you’re looking at.

The score follows your SMS data on a 24-month rolling window, refreshed monthly. Clean inspections are the lever: every violation-free inspection improves the measures, and old violations age out at 24 months. Fix the BASIC driving the alert (the flags on the result card show which), tighten pre-trip inspections on vehicle maintenance, and audit HOS compliance. If you’re in the Optional/Inspect band for insufficient data, more clean inspections resolve it naturally.

A carrier in the Inspect band gets pulled in more often, accumulates violations faster, and is statistically a higher loss risk — underwriters treat elevated ISS and BASIC alerts as pricing signals, and agents check them before submitting a risk. Monitoring a book of carriers for band changes (this tool can watch a carrier for you, free) is how trucking-focused agencies stay ahead of non-renewals.