The Backhaul Lexicon

Freight has its own language. If you're new to the industry, or if you've been near it long enough to know the acronyms but not quite sure what half of them mean, this page is for you. It's the working vocabulary I use at my desk at Carolina Expressways, written plain.

I'll add to it over time. If a term you heard on a call isn't here yet, reply to any issue of The Backhaul and I'll add it.

The people

Broker. A middleman licensed by the FMCSA to arrange freight between shippers and carriers. Doesn't own trucks. Owns relationships, pricing, and liability on the load. This is the seat I write from.

Carrier. The company that owns the truck and the authority to move freight. Can be one truck or ten thousand. When you hear "asset-based," this is what they mean.

Shipper. The company whose freight is being moved. Could be a factory, a 3PL, a distributor, a retailer, or a government agency.

Consignee. The company receiving the freight at the other end.

Driver. The person behind the wheel. Employed by the carrier, not the broker. When brokers say "the driver is sitting," they mean a human being has been stuck at a dock for hours.

Dispatcher. The carrier-side person who assigns loads to drivers and keeps them moving. The best ones answer the phone at 10pm. The worst ones don't.

3PL. Third-party logistics provider. Umbrella term for companies that move, store, or manage freight on behalf of a shipper. Brokerages are a subset of 3PL.

4PL. A 3PL that manages other 3PLs on behalf of a shipper. Strategic layer. Rarely touches freight directly.

Freight forwarder. Similar to a broker but typically for international or multi-modal moves, and often takes legal possession of the freight.

The paperwork

BOL. Bill of Lading. The legal document that rides with the freight. Lists what's being hauled, from where, to where, and who's responsible. If the BOL is wrong, everything downstream is wrong.

Rate confirmation (rate con). The contract for a single load between broker and carrier. Price, pickup, delivery, accessorials, detention terms. Signed before the truck moves.

POD. Proof of Delivery. The signed paperwork showing the load arrived. Without a POD, there's no invoice. Without an invoice, there's no pay.

MSA. Master Service Agreement. The overarching contract between broker and shipper, or broker and carrier, that governs every load moved under it.

Tender. The request to move a specific load, usually sent via EDI. A 204 tender is the initial load offer. A 990 is accept/reject. A 214 is a status update.

EDI. Electronic Data Interchange. The machine-to-machine protocol freight runs on. Old, clunky, and not going away.

W-9. What every carrier sends a broker before getting paid. If you're setting up a new carrier, this plus insurance plus authority is the minimum packet.

The load

Dry van. A standard 53-foot enclosed trailer. Most freight in the United States moves in one of these.

Reefer. A refrigerated trailer. Carries temperature-sensitive freight. Runs on its own fuel. Breaks expensive.

Flatbed. Open trailer for freight that doesn't fit in a box. Steel, lumber, machinery, oversized loads.

LTL. Less-than-truckload. Multiple shippers' freight shares one trailer. Priced by class, weight, and distance.

FTL. Full truckload. One shipper fills the whole trailer. What most brokers mean when they say "truckload."

Partial. Between LTL and FTL. One shipper's freight that doesn't fill the trailer but gets priced as dedicated space.

Drop-and-hook. Driver drops an empty trailer, hooks to a loaded one, and leaves. No waiting. The opposite of live-load.

Live load / live unload. Driver sits while the trailer is loaded or unloaded. Where detention is born.

Drayage. Short-haul moves between a port or rail yard and a nearby warehouse.

Intermodal. Freight that moves by more than one mode (truck-to-rail-to-truck). Cheaper on long hauls, slower, and weather-sensitive.

The money

RPM. Revenue per mile. What a carrier earns per mile on a given load. The single most important number on a rate confirmation.

Spot rate. The one-off, market-driven price for a single load. Moves daily.

Contract rate. The negotiated price for a lane over a period of time (quarter, year). Moves slowly.

Margin. What the broker keeps between what the shipper pays and what the carrier is paid. Shrinks in tight markets.

Deadhead. Miles run without freight. Pure cost, zero revenue. Every broker and carrier works to minimize it. Our tagline at Carolina Expressways is "Loads of signal. Zero deadhead." for a reason.

TONU. Truck Ordered, Not Used. A flat fee paid when a shipper cancels a load after the carrier has committed.

Layover. Payment to a carrier when a load requires the driver to stop overnight between pickup and delivery.

Detention. Payment owed when a driver sits at a dock longer than the free time written into the contract, usually two hours. The single biggest hidden cost in freight. We wrote a whole issue on it.

Accessorials. All the charges beyond the base rate. Detention, layover, tarps, lumpers, inside delivery, liftgate, reconsignment.

Lumper. A third-party crew that unloads the trailer at a warehouse. Shipper pays, or driver pays and gets reimbursed.

Fuel surcharge (FSC). A separate line item on the rate that moves with the price of diesel. Buffers the carrier from fuel volatility.

The market signals

DAT. The dominant load board and rate-data service in North American trucking. When brokers cite "DAT rates," this is where they're looking.

Load board. A digital marketplace where brokers post loads and carriers bid or book. DAT, Truckstop, and others.

ATRI. American Transportation Research Institute. The trucking industry's research arm. Publishes the annual Operational Costs of Trucking report and the detention cost studies we cite constantly.

FMCSA. Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. The federal regulator that licenses and oversees brokers and carriers.

MC number. The motor carrier authority number FMCSA assigns to a licensed carrier or broker. If a carrier doesn't have one, walk away.

DOT number. A separate federal ID for anyone operating a commercial vehicle in interstate commerce.

Authority. Shorthand for the federal operating license a broker or carrier holds through FMCSA.

Broker bond. A $75,000 surety bond every broker must hold with FMCSA. Protects carriers if a broker goes under without paying.

The federal seat

SDVOSB. Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business. A SBA certification that qualifies a firm for set-aside federal contracts. Carolina Expressways is one.

CAGE code. Commercial and Government Entity code. A five-character ID the DoD uses to identify any company it does business with.

NAICS. North American Industry Classification System. The six-digit codes federal buyers use to scope what a contract is for. Freight brokerage is 488510. General freight trucking is 484121 and 484122.

SAM. System for Award Management. The federal vendor registry. Every federal contractor has to be in it.

Set-aside. A contract reserved for a specific category of small business (SDVOSB, 8(a), WOSB, HUBZone).

Past performance. Federal-speak for a track record of delivering on prior contracts. The single most valuable asset a federal vendor builds over time.

The operational words

Dwell. How long a truck or container sits without moving. Can apply to a dock, a yard, or a port. High dwell means someone is bleeding money.

OS&D. Over, Short, and Damaged. The three ways a load can arrive wrong.

Claim. What a shipper files when freight arrives damaged, short, or late. The carrier's insurance typically answers.

Check call. A driver's scheduled status update. Pickup, in-transit, delivery. The heartbeat of a load.

Tracking. Real-time or near-real-time GPS visibility into where a load is. Table stakes now. Wasn't a decade ago.

ELD. Electronic Logging Device. Federally mandated device that records a driver's hours of service.

HOS. Hours of Service. The federal rules governing how long a driver can legally drive before resting. Currently 11 hours of driving in a 14-hour window.

Reconsignment. Changing the delivery address of a load after it's already picked up. Always costs extra.

Appointment. A specific scheduled time for pickup or delivery. Miss it, and you're at the back of the line.

That's the working set. If you want the full briefing that runs behind all of these terms, subscribe to The Backhaul. It lands Tuesday mornings from my desk in North Carolina.