Highway Best Practices
Highway’s Carrier Identity Engine is built around three core questions:
Authentication – Who is this person?
Authorization – Are they really the carrier?
Capability – Can they haul the load?
Compliance Rules, Classifications & Rule Results
Highway protects you beyond onboarding by enforcing continuous compliance through rules and classifications.
Classifications & Key Rules
You’ll typically see multiple classifications such as:
Interstate / standard freight
Hazmat
High value (e.g., higher cargo limits)
Each classification is a bundle of rules. Highway also enforces core fraud standards, including:
Highway Identity Alerts rule
Physical/Digital Footprint rule
These are foundational fraud protections that apply regardless of your custom setup.
Standard: Keep these baseline identity & footprint rules active. Build additional rules around your risk tolerance, not instead of these.
Read more: What is a Classification?, Common Classifications
Rule Assessment Results
For any carrier, you’ll see an overall Rules Assessment:
Pass – Carrier meets requirements for all classifications (e.g., standard, hazmat, high value).
Partial Pass – Carrier is approved for some classifications but not all.
Example: Approved for standard + hazmat, but insufficient cargo limits for high value.
Incomplete – Highway does not yet have a valid COI from a licensed agent.
Most often an insurance-data issue, not a failure.
Fail – Carrier does not meet one or more mandatory requirements.
Standard:
Treat Fail as do not use until resolved.
Treat Incomplete as unknown until a valid COI is on file.
Read more: What is a rule?
Handling Exceptions & Overrides
Overrides exist for legitimate edge cases—but they are also one of the most common ways brokers accidentally let bad actors into their network.
Best practices:
Avoid indefinite overrides.
Indefinite = “forever.” The only way to undo it is to remember to remove it later.
Treat overrides as rare, not routine.
Overriding 95% of the time means your rule set needs to be tuned, not bypassed.
Do not treat relational history as a safety net.
“Good” carriers can sell their MC or break bad after years of clean history.
Recent theft patterns show long-trusted carriers suddenly disappearing with freight.
Self-healing instead of overriding:
If failures are due to:
ELD connection – Have the carrier work with Highway to reconnect and show valid movement.
Insurance limits / VIN mismatch – Have the agent send updated COIs; carriers can fix ELD vs. COI discrepancies inside the Highway equipment tools.
Standard:
Think twice before any override.
Never override identity alerts or known fraud signals.
Avoid overrides even for “favorite” or “longstanding” carriers when Highway shows elevated risk.
Read more: Rule Overrides
Highway Risk Signals: Alerts, Insights & Associations
Highway surfaces different levels of risk signals.
Identity Alerts – Highest Severity
These are confirmed or strongly suspected fraud events, including:
Double brokering
Stolen assets / cargo theft
Hostage loads
Pending investigations
Alerts are:
Reported by brokers via Highway
Investigated by Highway’s risk team
Enriched with context to detect patterns (commodities, locations, behavior)
Standard:
Treat identity alerts as stop signs, not suggestions.
Do not override these.
Assume the carrier or associated entities present a real threat.
Insights – Elevated Risk
Highway maintains ~32+ Insight types that highlight behaviors and patterns, such as:
Unusual associations between carriers and users
Dispatch services logging in through carrier accounts
Identity or operational patterns seen across suspicious entities
The more high-risk insights attached to a carrier, the higher the concern.
Standard:
Use insights as a strong “lean-no.”
Multiple insights = higher risk, more scrutiny, fewer exceptions.
Associations – Lowest Signal
Associations track lighter-weight connections:
Shared IP addresses (e.g., Starbucks, truck stops, co-working spaces)
Other “common touchpoint” signals that may or may not be meaningful
They’re useful for deeper investigations, but can create analysis paralysis if overused.
Standard:
Use associations when doing deep risk review.
Don’t let them slow down the floor for everyday vetting.
Read more: What is an Identity Alert?
Floor Checklist: How Your Team Should Use Highway
As carrier sales and compliance teams move quickly, they should run a simple Highway checklist:
Check the Highway badge
Understand the carrier’s relationship and standing within Highway.
Check carrier users & IDV status
Ensure the users interacting with you have gone through Identity Proofing (IDV badge next to their user).
Review the overall Rules Assessment
Pass / Partial / Fail / Incomplete and what that means for the load you’re assigning.
Look for Identity Alerts
Any alert should pause booking until reviewed with your CSM / risk team.
Confirm ELD connection & status
Connected and active (movement data that matches insured equipment), not just “connected once.”
Check cargo exclusions
Avoid assigning loads that are excluded (e.g., seafood, copper, certain high-value freight) under the carrier’s policy.
Standard: Make this checklist part of training for every new floor rep and refresh it at least annually.
What to Watch Out For (Everyday Fraud Red Flags)
From recent trends, your teams should be extra cautious when they see:
Email-only interactions
Don’t trust email by itself, especially for load tenders or sensitive changes.
Suspicious communication style
Overly polished, templated, or obviously AI-generated text
Long, complex messages that don’t match how small carriers normally communicate
Carriers who suddenly sound “different” than prior history
Extreme persistence & urgency
Multiple calls/texts/emails pushing for freight, especially around holidays
Pressure to skip normal checks “because we’ve worked with you for years”
VoIP & spoofed calls
Use outbound calls to validated phone numbers from Highway, not callbacks to unknown numbers.
You can see phone type (mobile/VoIP) in Highway.
Sensitive details sent via standard email
Rate cons and detailed instructions should go through Secure Rate Con Delivery, not as attachments to arbitrary email addresses.
Standard: When something feels “off,” check Highway before you book—and escalate to your CSM or risk contact when in doubt.
What to Do If a Load Is Stolen or You Suspect Fraud
If you suspect fraud—or confirm a theft—time matters.
Report Immediately
Email:
carrieridentity@highway.com– goes directly to Highway’s risk teamservice@highway.com– can route issues to the right team if you’re not sure where to send it
Include as much as you can:
Load details (origin/destination, commodity, times)
All email threads and attachments
Phone numbers used (calls, texts, WhatsApp, etc.)
MCs, SCACs, or users involved
Any screenshots that help reconstruct the sequence
Why Speed Matters
Fast reporting enables Highway to:
Block the carrier and related entities in real time
Identify other brokers at risk from the same actor
Use ELD and other data sources (if available) to help locate freight in motion
Feed patterns back into identity alerts, insights, and rules to protect the entire network
Standard:
Do not wait “until the claim process starts.”
Report as soon as you suspect something is wrong, even if you’re not 100% sure yet.
If you’d like help pressure-testing your rule set or need more training, please reach out to your Customer Success Manager or contact broker@highway.com.