Glossary
Trucking terms, defined plainly
The vocabulary of dispatch and back-office work, written for someone who is new to it — a bookkeeper joining a carrier, an owner hiring their first dispatcher, or anyone trying to work out what a settlement statement is actually saying.
- Transportation Management System (TMS)
- Software a carrier uses to run freight operations end to end: dispatching loads, tracking assets, invoicing customers, paying drivers and keeping compliance documents current. A TMS differs from dispatch-only software in that it covers what happens after delivery as well as before it. See how the two differ →
- Rate confirmation
- The document a broker or shipper sends confirming a booked load: the agreed rate, pickup and delivery locations, appointment windows, reference numbers and any accessorial terms. It is the source document a dispatcher works from when creating the load, and re-typing it is where most dispatch data-entry time goes. How DispatchTrace reads it →
- Driver settlement
- The periodic statement of what a driver has earned and what has been deducted, producing a net amount to pay. It gathers the loads run in the period, applies the driver’s pay structure, and subtracts deductions such as truck rent, insurance, escrow, fuel and advances. Disputes over settlements are the most common source of friction between a carrier and its drivers. Settlements in DispatchTrace →
- Freight factoring
- Selling unpaid freight invoices to a factoring company at a discount in exchange for payment within a day or two, rather than waiting the thirty to sixty days a broker may take. Carriers use it to cover fuel and payroll while receivables are outstanding. The factor charges a percentage of the invoice value for the service.
- Deadhead
- Miles driven with an empty trailer, typically between delivering one load and picking up the next. Deadhead miles cost fuel and hours without generating revenue, so carriers track them separately from loaded miles and account for them when pricing a lane.
- Lumper fee
- A charge for third-party labour hired to load or unload a trailer, common at grocery and food distribution warehouses. The driver usually pays it on site and the carrier reclaims it from the broker as an accessorial, which means the receipt has to survive the trip back to the office.
- TONU
- Truck Ordered Not Used. A fee paid when a carrier has dispatched a truck to a load that is then cancelled before pickup. It partially compensates for the deadhead miles and the hours already committed. A TMS should treat TONU as a load status rather than deleting the record, so the miles and the fee are still accounted for.
- Bill of lading (BOL)
- The legal document issued at pickup describing the freight, its origin and destination, and the terms of carriage. It acts as a receipt for the goods and as evidence of the contract between shipper and carrier.
- Proof of delivery (POD)
- The signed document confirming freight was delivered, usually a signed bill of lading or delivery receipt. Brokers generally will not pay an invoice, and factors will not advance against it, until the POD is supplied — which makes document capture a cash-flow issue rather than an administrative one.
- Permit book
- The set of documents a truck must be able to produce at a roadside inspection: cab card and registration, proof of insurance, the IFTA licence, the MCS-90 endorsement and operating authority. Traditionally a paper binder kept in the cab, which goes out of date the moment a policy renews. The digital version →
- IFTA
- The International Fuel Tax Agreement, under which carriers operating across US states and Canadian provinces file a single quarterly fuel tax return, and the jurisdictions settle among themselves. Carriers must track miles run and fuel purchased in each jurisdiction to file it.
- Hours of service (HOS)
- The FMCSA rules limiting how long a commercial driver may drive and work before taking rest, and the records proving compliance. Since the ELD mandate, duty status is recorded automatically by the logging device rather than on paper.
- Electronic logging device (ELD)
- Hardware connected to a commercial vehicle’s engine that automatically records driving time and duty status for hours-of-service compliance. Most ELD platforms also report location and odometer, which a TMS can use to show where a load is. Carriers rarely change ELD provider, so a TMS is generally expected to work alongside whichever one is already fitted.
- MCS-90
- An endorsement attached to a motor carrier’s liability insurance policy guaranteeing that the insurer will pay judgments for public injury or property damage up to the federally required minimum, even if the policy would otherwise exclude the claim. It is one of the documents expected in the permit book.
- Revenue per mile (RPM)
- Total revenue on a load or over a period divided by the miles run. Carriers use it to compare loads and lanes on a like-for-like basis. Whether deadhead miles are included materially changes the number, so the basis should always be stated.
- Driver escrow
- Money withheld from an owner-operator’s settlements and held by the carrier as security against damage, fuel or equipment, refundable when the contract ends. It is normally deducted as a fixed recurring amount over a set number of settlements, and must be tracked to a balance rather than as loose deductions.
- Recurring deduction
- A deduction applied automatically to a driver’s settlement on a schedule rather than entered each period — typically truck rent, insurance, escrow or ELD fees. A schedule normally carries an amount, a run day and a number of runs remaining, so it stops on its own when the obligation is met. How the schedules run →
- MVR
- Motor Vehicle Record: a driver’s official state licensing and violation history, pulled during hiring and periodically thereafter as part of the carrier’s driver qualification file.
- PSP
- Pre-Employment Screening Program: an FMCSA record showing a driver’s crash and roadside inspection history over recent years, obtained with the driver’s written consent during hiring.
- DVIR
- Driver Vehicle Inspection Report: the record a driver completes documenting the condition of the vehicle at the start or end of a shift, noting any defect that would affect safe operation. DVIRs are normally captured in the ELD platform rather than in a TMS.
Most of these are a screen in DispatchTrace
Settlements, factoring batches, permit books and compliance expiries are the product, not the paperwork around it.