Where every line on HaulVet comes from.
Carrier facts come from public government records in two ways: files FMCSA publishes on data.transportation.gov, which we load on a schedule, and pages on FMCSA’s and other government websites, such as the SAFER company snapshot, which we read one carrier at a time. Each fact is labelled with its file or page and its dates, and we do not change a value except to tidy its format.
Yesterday’s publication (UTC); the next load follows FMCSA’s next daily files. Loaded 17:05 ET. Source files as of 2026-11-12. Legacy files frozen 2026-05-14.
Publication id 53 · 16 datasets in the manifest · read 2026-11-14 00:30 UTCDatasets we load
ids are FMCSA’s own on data.transportation.gov| # | Dataset | What it holds | Refresh | Used for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Motor Carrier Censusaz4n-8mr2 | Every USDOT registration: legal and DBA names, addresses, phone, fax, email, two officer names, fleet and driver counts, cargo types, MCS-150 date. FMCSA states that the file excludes shipper-only registrations and carriers with an active Hazardous Materials Safety Permit, so a USDOT can be absent from it while present in other files; the record then says the USDOT is absent and that the cause is not established | Daily, full file | Identity, contact details, fleet size, change detection |
| 2 | Motus Carrier, all with historyinys-ebih | One row per operating authority per docket (MC, FF, MX): authority type and current status (Active, Pending, Inactive, Withdrawn) | Daily | Current authority status; the governing source where the docket is in Motus |
| 3 | Motus Authority Historyyu5v-wbh6 | Status changes with date and reason: granted, reinstated, revoked, involuntary or voluntary suspension, dismissed, withdrawn | Daily | Authority timeline and alerts |
| 4 | Motus Insurancec5y8-a4uz | Active and pending filings: form type (BI&PD, cargo, broker bond, trust fund), policy number, insurer, effective date | Daily | Filing on record |
| 5 | Motus Insurance History3uet-3z4i | Cancelled or replaced filings with the cancellation effective date and reason | Daily | Scheduled and past cancellations, alerts |
| 6 | Motus BOC-36snj-ed7q | Process-agent (blanket agent) filings per docket | Daily | Process agent on file |
| 7 | Motus Revocations and Suspensionswb4f-neki | Involuntary and voluntary suspension and revocation notices with served date and effective date | Daily | Pending and effective orders, alerts |
| 8 | Legacy Licensing and Insurance files6eyk-hxeeqh9u-swkpypjt-5ydn6sqe-dvqs9mw4-x3tusa6p-acbp2emp-mxtb96tg-4mhf | The pre-Motus operating-authority system: carrier, active and pending insurance, insurance, insurance history, authority history, revocation, BOC-3, and the forms FMCSA refused (almost all of them cancellation notices) | Frozen. FMCSA stopped updating these on 2026-05-14 when it launched Motus | Baseline for dockets that have not yet appeared in Motus; always shown with the 2026-05-14 date |
| 9 | Out-of-Service Ordersp2mt-9ige | Out-of-service orders with reason, status and rescind date. FMCSA describes the file as the New Entrant program's orders, but its rows carry ten different reason families (new entrant, imminent hazard, nonpayment of fines, unfit, denial of access and others) and every order is loaded whatever its reason. Whether the file holds every kind of order FMCSA issues is not established | Daily | The Orders gate and alerts: every current, unrescinded order in the file, with its date and the reason as FMCSA published it. The absence of an order in the file is not proof there is none |
| 10 | Vehicle Inspection Filefx4q-ay7w | Roadside inspections: date, state, level, and the vehicle and driver out-of-service outcome. FMCSA's published scope is the last three years, and by FMCSA's own statement the file omits inactive USDOT numbers, shipper-only registrations and carriers with an active Hazardous Materials Safety Permit. A carrier the file omits is described as omitted, never counted as zero | Weekly, full file, read by the Sunday load | Safety section: inspection counts, out-of-service rates with their denominators, last inspection date, and the file's scope beside an empty result |
| 11 | Inspections Per Unitwt8s-2hbx | Each vehicle seen at an inspection: VIN, plate and state, CVSA decal, unit type, make, company unit number | Weekly | Safety section: units seen at roadside and units shared with other USDOTs |
| 12 | Vehicle Inspections and Violations876r-jsdb | The violations recorded at each inspection: code, description, unit, out-of-service indicator | Weekly | Safety section: violations under each inspection |
| 13 | Crash Fileaayw-vxb3 | Police-reported crash reports involving a commercial vehicle, one report per vehicle: date, state, severity, casualties; driver and hazmat fields withheld by FMCSA. FMCSA states the same shipper-only and permit-holder exclusions as for the census, yet the file carries crash reports for some carriers the census omits, so that statement is recorded here and not applied as a rule | Weekly | Safety section: crash reports with their dates and severity; never summed across reports |
| 14 | Safety Measurement System output, property carriers4y6x-dmck | Per-carrier 24-month inspection totals and the measure and acute or critical flag for five BASIC categories, for property carriers; FMCSA publishes no ranking figure for them, and the period's end date is not in the public file. FMCSA's passenger-carrier results are in their own files, row 19 | Monthly at FMCSA, read by the weekly load and by the monthly SMS load (row 17) | Safety section: the SMS measures with the file's own date, and, where the weekly inspection file has no rows for a carrier, FMCSA's own SMS inspection count beside that fact |
| 15 | Inspections and Citationsqbt8-7vic | What happened in court to a violation cited at a roadside inspection: dismissed or not guilty, convicted of a different charge, or convicted as charged | As FMCSA updates it | Safety section: the outcome shown under the violation it belongs to; an outcome that matches no loaded violation is listed on its own |
| 16 | Motus daily difference filesnakq-58thdm5j-zc6cx96h-evpsxe5s-wca7mhr5-hjyce67p-xyd5 | The rows FMCSA added, changed or removed that day in each Motus file: carrier, authority history, insurance, insurance history, BOC-3, revocations and suspensions | Daily | Evidence of when a change first appeared, listed on the record with its file and date; no gate reads it |
| 17 | Safety Measurement System input fileskjg3-diqyrbkj-cgst8mt8-2mdr4wxs-vbns | The census lines, inspections, violations and crash rows FMCSA's monthly SMS run used; the inspections, violations and crash rows cover the 24 months ending at the measurement cutoff FMCSA states on its SMS website. The violation file holds only violations FMCSA assigns to a BASIC category, and the crash file omits crash reports FMCSA did not tie to a carrier, so these files are not the weekly files above and are never added to them | Monthly at FMCSA. All eight SMS files (rows 14, 17, 18 and 19) are loaded together as one set with one measurement cutoff, the date FMCSA states on its SMS website | Safety section: the SMS census line and the SMS inspection, violation and crash lists, each with the SMS files' date and cutoff, kept apart from the weekly counts |
| 18 | Safety Measurement System output, intrastate carriersh9zy-gjn8 | The same measures and acute or critical flags as row 14, for active intrastate carriers that do not haul hazardous materials. FMCSA publishes no ranking figure in it | Monthly at FMCSA, read by the monthly SMS load | Safety section: the SMS measures with the file's own date |
| 19 | Safety Measurement System output, passenger carriersm3ry-qciph3zn-uid9 | For passenger (bus) carriers, interstate and intrastate: the SMS measures plus FMCSA's own ranking figure (its _PCT field), an over-threshold flag and an alert status, all as FMCSA computes and publishes them | Monthly at FMCSA, read by the monthly SMS load | Safety section: FMCSA's own published figures, copied under FMCSA's column name with the file's date. HaulVet computes no ranking, threshold or alert of its own |
| 20 | Special Studies5qik-smay | Extra fields FMCSA records at some roadside inspections (Level IV special studies), one row per inspection and study field. FMCSA's data dictionary does not explain the values, and the file shares the Vehicle Inspection File's scope and three-year window | Weekly, read by the Sunday load | Safety section: the values as FMCSA published them, with the file's date; no gate reads them |
Loaded weekly since 2026-09-24: vehicle inspections, inspections per unit (VIN and plate), violations, crash reports and the Safety Measurement System output for property carriers. Loaded monthly since 2026-09-26: the eight Safety Measurement System files, including the passenger-carrier files, as one set. When a weekly or monthly load is refused or rolled back, the last complete edition stays on the page with its own date, and the section says the refresh did not complete. More FMCSA files and pages are being added. A record uses a file or page only once it has been loaded or read, and names the files and pages it used under Sources, each with its date.
Which record wins. If a docket appears in any Motus file, the Motus record governs and the legacy record for that docket is retired. If a docket has never appeared in Motus, the frozen legacy record is shown with its 2026-05-14 date. Once a docket is Motus-governed it stays so. The rule is applied per docket number, not per company, so a company with two dockets can be Motus-governed for one and legacy-governed for the other. Every authority, insurance, agent and order fact names which source it came from.
The census file also carries docket status flags. We do not use them for status: checked on 2026-09-13, they disagree with the governing source for a large share of records. We use them only as a hint to link a USDOT number to its docket numbers.
Pages we read from government websites
not files, so each is dated by when we read itOur reader identifies itself as HaulVet, reads at most one page a second, and only reads pages on an allow-list. A block built from a page names that page and the date we read it, because a page is not a dated file.
| # | Source | What it holds | When we read it | Used for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | SAFER company snapshot and out-of-service searchsafer.fmcsa.dot.gov | One carrier's snapshot page: USDOT status, operating authority line, fleet size, 24-month inspection and crash totals, and the safety rating, each with the date the page states; and FMCSA's out-of-service listing | One carrier at a time | Shown in their own blocks on the record, beside the files, with the date we read them; no gate reads them |
| 2 | SMS carrier pagesai.fmcsa.dot.gov | The overview, complete profile and BASIC pages FMCSA shows for one carrier, including investigations and enforcement case references | One carrier at a time | Shown as FMCSA displays them, with the date we read them; no gate reads them |
| 3 | FMCSA enforcement casesai.fmcsa.dot.gov | Closed enforcement cases by fiscal year | When FMCSA's page shows a new date | Cases naming the carrier, with the page's date; no gate reads them |
| 4 | Other government lookupsFMCSA, PHMSA, NHTSA, Regulations.gov | Hazardous materials permit status, household-goods complaints, complaint database accounts, hazmat registrations, docket documents naming the USDOT, and vehicle and recall details for VINs seen at inspections | One carrier or one batch of VINs at a time | Context blocks with their source and date; no gate reads them |
| 5 | FMCSA's registration systemmotus.dot.gov | One carrier's current registration and authority status | When a signed-in member opens a carrier whose authority is still governed by the frozen legacy files, and nightly for such carriers on a watch list | Those carriers' gates, which say when the check was made. A visitor who is not signed in sees the published files and a link to FMCSA's page |
What “as of” means
Two dates sit next to every fact. Published is the date of our publication, the daily load that put the fact on the page. Source as of is the date FMCSA last updated that dataset, read from the portal’s own metadata. They can differ by a day.
Our daily load runs once a day after FMCSA posts its files, in the afternoon Eastern time. If FMCSA’s file has not changed since the previous day, we say “no new source data” rather than pretending the data is fresher. If our load is late or fails, every page shows the date of the data we hold and a notice that the daily refresh has not arrived.
Frozen legacy facts always carry as of 2026-05-14, however recently we reloaded the file.
A suspension or an insurance cancellation has a served date, an effective date, and the date it first appeared in our data. We show all three where we have them. “Takes effect 2026-10-15” means the government record says so. It does not mean it has happened yet.
FMCSA says its published data is about 24 hours old and not real-time. We say the same: every fact is “as of” a date, never “now”.
Facts versus indicators
A fact is a value copied from an FMCSA record: a name, a status, a filing, a served date. It is shown with its dataset and its as-of date, in plain type. We do not alter it except to tidy its format, for example removing leading zeros from a USDOT number.
An indicator is a statement we compute by comparing records with each other, for example “this phone number also appears on 2 other active USDOT records”. Every indicator is labelled, is literally true of the records at the publication date, and lists the records behind it.
An indicator is not a finding of wrongdoing, and not a finding of double brokering. Shared contacts usually have ordinary explanations: a dispatch service, a registered agent, a factoring company, a family of companies, a shared office building. Where we know a value belongs to such a service we say so instead of counting it.
HaulVet does not rate or rank carriers: never a score, never a grade. “Unknown” and “not found in source as of date” are their own answers, never a pass and never a fail. Where a tool compares a value you entered with the record, it shows only which records list it (the double-brokering check marks it “on both”, the shared-contact check gives a count); HaulVet does not confirm identity.
Known limits
as of 2026-11-13- No ranking figures for property carriers. FMCSA publishes no BASIC ranking figure for property carriers, and HaulVet computes none. For passenger carriers FMCSA publishes a ranking figure (its _PCT field), an over-threshold flag and an alert status in two separate files; HaulVet loads those files and shows those columns only as FMCSA's own figures, under FMCSA's column name and with the file's date, and computes none of them. The Safety section shows the SMS measures as published, with the file's own date, and inspection and crash-report counts with their dates and the 24-month window they cover.
- The inspection file has a published scope. FMCSA's Vehicle Inspection File holds about three years of roadside inspections and, by FMCSA's own statement, omits inactive USDOT numbers, shipper-only registrations and carriers with an active Hazardous Materials Safety Permit. A carrier with no rows is therefore described, not counted as zero. An inactive registration reads “The Vehicle Inspection File published [date] contains no reports for this USDOT. Its published scope excludes inactive registrations.” A USDOT with no census row reads “This USDOT is absent from the Company Census edition published [date]. The cause of its absence has not been established.”, because a census absence does not establish a permit. Where FMCSA's SMS file lists inspections the weekly file lacks, the record adds “SMS lists N inspections for the 24-month period in FMCSA's SMS file published [date]. The Vehicle Inspection File uses a different population and period.” The two counts are never added together.
- Safety data is weekly or monthly, not daily. Inspections, violations, crash reports and units are read once a week from full files, so the Safety section can be up to a week behind the rest of the record. The eight SMS files are published by FMCSA once a month and cover 24 months ending at FMCSA's measurement cutoff, so their blocks can be more than a month behind. Every block names the publication it came from. Their absence on a record does not mean there are none.
- Out-of-service orders come from one file. FMCSA describes its Out-of-Service Orders file as the New Entrant program's orders, but its rows carry ten different reason families, and orders of every reason are loaded. An unrescinded order affects the Orders gate whatever its reason, and the record names the reason as FMCSA published it. Whether that file holds every kind of order FMCSA issues is not established, so the absence of an order in the file is not proof there is none; the record reports what the file holds as of its date and no more.
- Insurance coverage is partial. Some active carriers show no liability filing in their governing source. We are checking whether these are exempt carriers, filings held in the other source, or true gaps. Until then the record says “no BI&PD filing found in [source] as of [date]”, and no more.
- Biennial update enforcement is suspended. FMCSA suspended enforcement of the biennial MCS-150 update (FMCSA page dated 2026-09-10). A stale MCS-150 date is shown as a date only and is not treated as a warning until enforcement resumes.
- Legacy history is frozen. Anything that happened to a legacy-only docket after 2026-05-14 is invisible to us until FMCSA processes that docket in Motus.
- Some Motus rows are incomplete. A small number of Motus records lack a docket number, policy number or agent name. We keep them and show “unknown” for the missing field.
- Reason text is scrubbed. Some FMCSA status-change reasons contain a filer's email address. We remove email addresses and phone numbers from reason text before display.
- Shared-contact counts exclude known service values. Phone numbers, emails and addresses that belong to dispatch services, registered agents, factoring companies and similar are placed on an exclusion list after a review of the records that list them, and shown with an explanation instead of a count. Values still under review say so. Values masked at a carrier's request leave other carriers' counts as well.
- No accuracy rate is published yet. On 2026-10-11 we compared what HaulVet showed for 535 carriers, chosen to include the hard cases, against FMCSA's own record (the daily Motus files and one read per carrier of FMCSA's public Motus lookup): authority status for all 535 and the filing on record for 249 of them. It was one internal comparison on one day, and out-of-service status was not part of it, so it is not the planned check of a sample measured on all three, and we state no agreement rate. When that check has run, the dated results will be published here.
- Data is at most daily. A change FMCSA makes after our load appears in the next publication.
Report an error
If HaulVet shows a record wrongly (wrong value, wrong date, wrong link between records), use the correction form. Tell us the USDOT number, what is wrong, and what the FMCSA record shows. You get a case number and a confirmation email straight away, and we aim to decide within 5 business days and to email you the decision.
If the FMCSA record itself is wrong, we cannot change it. Carriers update their registration with FMCSA (Form MCS-150 and the Motus registration system). Once FMCSA publishes the change, HaulVet picks it up in the next daily load.
If you are named on a carrier’s record and want your phone, email or name masked on HaulVet, use the same form.
FMCSA data is a work of the U.S. Government and in the public domain. Attribution on every page, in the footer: “Source: FMCSA public records via data.transportation.gov, as of 2026-11-13.” HaulVet is not affiliated with or endorsed by FMCSA or the U.S. Department of Transportation. Our own text, explanations, indicator logic and software are ours.