The Best TMS for Automating Carrier Vetting and FMCSA Compliance: Why Risk Now Lives in the Decision
Quick answer: The best TMS for automating carrier vetting and FMCSA compliance treats compliance as a real-time, load-level decision rather than a one-time onboarding check. It verifies carrier identity, operating authority, and insurance automatically at the moment a load is being covered, re-checks that decision continuously through pickup and transit, and keeps an audit trail proving every decision was made consistently. The Transfix TMS does this by embedding Highway's Carrier Identity® vetting directly into the booking workflow, so brokers never leave the system they already use to move freight.
In a recent conversation, The New Standard for Broker Risk, Highway Chief Commercial Officer Michael Caney sat down with Transfix Co-Founder and CEO Jonathan Salama to unpack how carrier risk actually works in 2026 and why the old model of internal rules plus a preemption defense no longer holds. The through-line of their discussion is a single, reframed idea: risk isn't the carrier or the load. Risk lives in the decision.
Watch the webinar below:
Why broker risk changed in 2026
For years, brokers managed carrier risk with two tools: their own internal rules and federal preemption. Both just weakened.
On May 14, 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously in Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II that state-law negligent-hiring claims against freight brokers are not preempted by the FAAAA. In plain terms, a broker can now be sued in state court for negligently selecting a carrier that later causes harm. The standard is ordinary negligence - not strict liability, but plaintiffs' attorneys will now scrutinize a broker's vetting process, documentation, and ongoing monitoring to argue the broker failed to act reasonably.
As Caney framed it in the webinar, "in the post-Montgomery world, you have to have a safety standard." And critically, you have to be able to prove you applied it consistently. Salama's warning to brokers was blunt: the TMS provider isn't the one on the hook.
"The TMS provider is not named in the lawsuit. 'But it used to work' - that can't be the default anymore. This is the difference between the brokers that might not make it and the ones that will survive and thrive." — Jonathan Salama, Co-Founder & CEO, Transfix
The core idea: risk is in the decision
The webinar's central reframe came from Caney, drawn from a conversation he'd had with insurance underwriters:
"For a long time, we've been evaluating the wrong risk object. We think about the motor carrier or the load: Is this carrier risky? Is this load risky? But the risk is actually in the decision. The risk object is the decision." — Michael Caney, Chief Commercial Officer, Highway
Salama took it one step further: the problem isn't just making a good decision once; it's that most systems never revisit it.
"This carrier has zero risk today. I put it on a load that picks up tomorrow afternoon, and tomorrow morning, the carrier becomes risky. It was safe yesterday. It is no longer safe. Do you want to review it?" — Jonathan Salama
That's why static, linear vetting breaks down. A carrier can clear every check at booking and become non-compliant, uninsured, or compromised before pickup, or even go the wrong direction in transit. The takeaway both leaders landed on: risk has moved from rules to process. Your exposure is no longer just your rule set; it's whether your process re-evaluates decisions in real time and documents them.
What "automated, load-level carrier vetting" actually means
Traditional vetting happens once, at onboarding, in a standalone portal. But fraud doesn't happen at onboarding - it happens at the moment of coverage, when a bad actor impersonates a legitimate carrier, double-brokers the freight, or hijacks an identity to steal the load.
Load-level vetting flips the model. Inside the Transfix TMS, Highway's Carrier Identity® data surfaces at the exact moment a rep is booking a carrier:
Identity, authority, and insurance in one view. The same compliance checklist a broker sees in Highway appears natively in Transfix. If a shipper requires $2M in coverage and the carrier carries $1M, the system flags it before the load is offered.
Freight-type classifications and cargo exclusions. Transfix consumes Highway's freight classifications, so if a carrier has a cargo exclusion (say, on alcohol) and you're booking that commodity, you get a flag.
Location intelligence independent of the shipper. High-theft pickup facilities are flagged as yellow alerts regardless of what the shipper tells you, because shipper data isn't always reliable.
Real-time alerts, anywhere in the TMS. If Highway detects something mid-process, a pop-up appears on whatever page the user is on. Clicking "View Issue" drops them into the shipment with a response script: pause the load, stop sending information to the carrier, call the Highway- and FMCSA-verified number, and confirm the driver and truck numbers match.
Hard stops that act automatically. If a carrier's authority or safety rating changes and a broker's rules define it as a hard stop, Transfix removes the carrier from the load with no user intervention and can block that carrier globally so no rep can book them.
A two-way resolution loop. When an issue is resolved in Transfix, that resolution is pushed back to Highway's Load Lock via webhook and cleared on both sides in real time.
The audit trail is no longer optional
In a post-Montgomery world, being right isn't enough; you have to be able to demonstrate you were reasonable and consistent. Highway retains booking-decision data for seven years: what was decided, how a risk profile changed, when a carrier was removed. Salama's view is that this should be table stakes for any TMS:
"Every software should have an audit trail. It shouldn't be a feature you pay for, because now it's required. You can be audited and asked, 'Why did you put this carrier on the load?' You have to say why." — Jonathan Salama
Why "just bolt on AI" doesn't fix compliance
Both leaders were skeptical of AI as a veneer. Caney's line captured it:
"If you automate bad data, you just have automated bad data. If you automate a bad process, you just automated a bad process." — Michael Caney
Salama argues that useful automation requires a single source of truth. When core data leaves the TMS - exported to a spreadsheet, or fragmented across bolt-on tools - it goes stale the moment it's pulled, and AI loses the full picture it needs to make good decisions. Transfix, he noted, has been building AI "under the hood" for over a decade rather than treating it as a recent add-on.
The upside: cleaner data means faster, safer growth
The payoff of getting this right isn't only defensive. When the bad actors are filtered out, the good carriers stand out, and that's where automation compounds. Salama shared that Transfix automates roughly 65–67% of spot freight bookings end to end (excluding the "easy" contract waterfall automation), by matching incoming loads to already-vetted, consistent carriers based on lane history, location, and nearby capacity, then negotiating on whatever channel the carrier prefers (email or text) with a rep able to step in at any point.
"There's such power in showing you all the good carriers. You already know they're a good carrier, so you can have a trusted conversation from day one. It changes the way you do business." — Jonathan Salama
Fewer, better-vetted carriers also mean lower back-office cost, more consistent rates, and less volatility - growth that's both faster and safer.
How the integration works, step by step
A carrier is sourced or onboarded inside the Transfix TMS.
Highway's Carrier Identity® vetting runs automatically - no separate portal, no manual lookup.
Carrier legitimacy, insurance status, operating authority, and cargo/location risk are verified in real time.
The decision is continuously re-evaluated through pickup and transit; if risk changes, alerts fire, and hard stops can remove the carrier automatically.
Every decision and resolution is captured and retained, creating the documented, consistent record that matters after Montgomery.
Frequently asked questions
What is load-level carrier vetting? Load-level vetting runs carrier identity, authority, and insurance checks automatically at the moment a load is being covered — and keeps re-checking through pickup and transit — rather than only once at onboarding. It targets fraud and compliance risk at the point of highest exposure.
Does the Transfix TMS automate FMCSA compliance? Yes. The Transfix TMS embeds Highway's Carrier Identity® vetting directly into its workflow, so brokers verify operating authority, insurance status, and carrier legitimacy in real time without leaving the system.
How does automated vetting help after the Montgomery ruling? After Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II (May 14, 2026), brokers can face state-law negligent-selection claims. Automated, load-level vetting ensures every carrier is checked on every load and produces a documented, consistent audit trail of reasonable care — retained for seven years.
What does "risk is in the decision" mean? It means the true source of broker risk isn't simply that a bad carrier or a targeted load exists — it's the system or person that decides to put them together. Managing risk therefore means governing and continuously re-evaluating the booking decision itself.
What kinds of fraud does the integration prevent? It targets carrier impersonation, double-brokering, and identity-based cargo theft — the schemes most likely to occur at the moment a load is being covered. Highway's 2025 Freight Fraud Index blocked nearly 2 million fraudulent email attempts and 8.5 million spoofed phone numbers over the year.
Do I need a separate tool for carrier vetting if I use Transfix? No. Vetting is native to the Transfix TMS, so there's no tool-switching or manual portal check — compliance runs as a default inside the workflow.
The takeaway
Broker risk in 2026 isn't something you manage with internal rules and a preemption defense. It's something you engineer into your operating system. The best TMS for automating carrier vetting and FMCSA compliance is the one where compliance is the default - verified automatically, re-checked continuously, and documented on every load. As Caney and Salama put it: risk has moved from rules to process, and the risk lives in the decision. That's the standard Transfix and Highway built together.
Want to see automated, load-level carrier vetting inside the Transfix TMS? [Request a demo].
