When you start shopping for car shipping, you'll see two terms thrown around constantly: broker and carrier. They're often used interchangeably in marketing copy, but they're very different things, and understanding which one you're talking to is one of the most useful things you can learn before you book.
What a carrier is.
A carrier is a trucking company that owns the trucks and employs (or contracts) the drivers who actually move your car. They are the people physically driving the vehicle from A to B. There are roughly 15,000 active auto transport carriers in the US, and the vast majority of them are very small operations: one to five trucks, often family-owned, regional in scope.
Carriers do not typically advertise to consumers. You'll almost never find one through a Google search. They get their loads through brokers, through load boards, and through direct relationships with dealers and manufacturers.
What a broker is.
A broker is a company that arranges the shipment but does not own trucks or employ drivers. When you book with a broker, the broker takes your booking, posts it to a network of carriers, and assigns the load to whichever carrier accepts it. The broker handles the customer-facing side: quoting, billing, communication, claims. The carrier handles the actual driving.
If you found a company through a Google search, an aggregator site, or a "best of" list, it's a broker. RoadRunner is a broker. Montway is a broker. Easy Auto Ship is a broker. Almost the entire consumer-facing auto transport industry is brokers.
Why it matters.
The quality of your shipment depends on two separate things: the quality of the broker you book with, and the quality of the carrier the broker assigns. A great broker can still assign a mediocre carrier if their vetting is loose or if no good carrier wants the load at the price quoted. A weak broker can occasionally assign a great carrier by luck.
Your job as a shipper is to evaluate the broker on how well they screen the carriers they dispatch, because you don't get to pick the carrier directly. The good brokers maintain a vetted network and only dispatch to drivers who've been screened. The bad brokers post your load on a public board and assign it to the lowest bidder.
The "we have our own trucks" claim.
A few brokers market themselves as having their own fleet. In almost every case this is misleading; they may own a small number of trucks but they still rely overwhelmingly on contracted carriers for actual shipments. Treat any "we own our trucks" claim with skepticism unless the company can tell you specifically that your shipment will be moved on one of their owned trucks.
What to ask before you book.
If you're talking to a broker (you almost certainly are), the questions worth asking:
- How do you screen the carriers in your network?
- Can you tell me the carrier's name and MC number once one is assigned, before pickup?
- What's your process if I'm unhappy with the assigned carrier and want a different one?
- What happens if the assigned carrier cancels?
The good brokers have clear answers. The bad ones get vague.