Freight agents: quotes, tenders, tracking and exceptions

How it works today

A truckload or less-than-truckload (LTL) shipment passes through five steps, and each has its own channel.

Step	EDI (X12)	API standard	Still common
Rate quote	None standard	NMFTA DSDC Rate/Quote (truckload)	Email, phone, load boards
Tender and acceptance	204 Motor Carrier Load Tender, 990 Response to a Load Tender	NMFTA Book and Tender (truckload)	Email with a rate confirmation
Pickup and paperwork	None standard	NMFTA eBOL (LTL 2.1 and truckload), Pickup Request and Visibility (LTL), Appointment Scheduling (truckload)	Paper bill of lading
Tracking	214 Transportation Carrier Shipment Status Message	NMFTA In-Transit Visibility (LTL and truckload)	Check calls to dispatch
Billing	210 Motor Carrier Freight Details and Invoice	NMFTA Preliminary Freight Charges (LTL), Invoice and Documentation (truckload)	Emailed PDF invoices

The API standards come from the Digital Standards Development Council of the National Motor Freight Traffic Association (NMFTA), which publishes them for download. Ocean freight has its own set: the Digital Container Shipping Association (DCSA) publishes open, vendor-neutral standards for booking, electronic bills of lading, and container track and trace.

Exceptions are where the channels break down. A driver held at the shipper, a missed dock appointment, a refused load or damaged freight usually turns into phone calls between dispatchers, brokers and receivers, then emails to confirm what was agreed. In the US, a cargo loss or damage claim has formal rules under 49 CFR Part 370. The claim must be in writing, identify the shipment, assert liability and state an amount. The carrier must acknowledge it within 30 days and pay, decline or make a firm settlement offer within 120 days, then report status every 60 days while it stays open.

Carrier identity is where regulators are investing. In the US, FMCSA registers carriers and brokers under USDOT numbers. It has proposed phasing out separate MC numbers so the USDOT number becomes the sole identifier, a change it says will go through proposed rulemaking. Its new registration system, Motus, which FMCSA scheduled to open to all users in May 2026, is built with fraud-resistant security features, and every existing registrant must complete identity and business verification before transacting in it. In Canada, provinces and territories regulate most trucking. Carriers that cross provincial or international borders fall under federal rules that require a safety fitness certificate, and provinces administer those certificates under the National Safety Code.

The agent-to-agent version

Illustrative. A shipper’s agent has tendered load LD-55812 to a carrier’s agent, which accepted and created a long-running task. The shipper’s agent registered a webhook with a push notification config, so status arrives without polling. When the driver is held at pickup, the carrier’s agent sends this A2A v1.0 push payload:

{
  "statusUpdate": {
    "taskId": "task-load-55812",
    "contextId": "ctx-shipment-55812",
    "status": {
      "state": "TASK_STATE_WORKING",
      "timestamp": "2026-10-02T14:05:00Z",
      "message": {
        "messageId": "msg-55812-17",
        "taskId": "task-load-55812",
        "contextId": "ctx-shipment-55812",
        "role": "ROLE_AGENT",
        "parts": [
          { "text": "Delayed: driver held at pickup for 3 hours. New delivery ETA is 09:30 local on 3 October. The receiver appointment needs to move." },
          {
            "data": {
              "loadId": "LD-55812",
              "event": "delay",
              "reason": "held-at-pickup",
              "newEta": "2026-10-03T13:30:00Z",
              "appointmentChangeNeeded": true
            },
            "mediaType": "application/json"
          }
        ]
      }
    }
  }
}

What follows, as steps:

1. The shipper’s agent asks the receiver’s scheduling agent for a new dock slot, then passes the confirmed time back to the carrier’s agent on the same task.
2. The carrier’s agent flags a possible detention charge as structured data, so the shipper sees the charge before the invoice.
3. At delivery the carrier’s agent completes the task with artifacts: the signed eBOL and proof of delivery.
4. The invoice follows as an X12 210, an NMFTA invoice call, or a message on the same connection.

What has to be true

Identity. The risk FMCSA’s verification targets is a party posing as a registered carrier. An agent’s Signed Agent Card proves who holds the signing key. It says nothing about FMCSA registration or a Canadian safety fitness certificate. The shipper or broker still has to bind that key to a registered carrier it has vetted, and recheck it when registration status changes.

Authority. Accepting a tender commits a truck. Agreeing to detention, a reconsignment or a rate change commits money. Each side’s agent needs written limits on what it may accept without a dispatcher or broker, and the other side needs a way to check those limits.

Record. Brokers must keep a record of each brokered shipment for three years under 49 CFR 371.3, including the carrier’s name, address and registration number, the bill of lading or freight bill number, and the freight charges paid to the carrier. Each party to the transaction may review that record. A cargo claim must be in writing. Agent-to-agent status messages and agreed changes should be stored so they can support both.

Channel security. Push notifications are HTTP POSTs to a webhook, so the receiving agent must authenticate them and reject forged status events. A2A section 13.2 covers push notification security.

Shared meaning. A2A defines how tasks move between agents and leaves the freight fields to the parties. Those fields should map to the X12 204, 990 and 214 or to the NMFTA and DCSA API standards, so both sides read “delay” and “delivered” the same way.

Where Emissar fits

• Front Door (Open to design partners): a hosted A2A endpoint where a carrier or broker exposes quote, tender and status skills in front of its existing transportation management system.
• Resolve (In development): a shipper’s agent often starts from a dispatcher’s phone number or a company name. Resolve is designed to turn those into a verified agent endpoint before anyone dials.
• Verify (In development): checks the calling agent’s key against a known provider record, the first defence against carrier impersonation.
• Ledger (Spec in progress): a signed receipt of each tender, acceptance and agreed change that both parties can retrieve.
• Handoff (In development): passes refused loads, damage and disputed charges to a dispatcher with the full exchange attached.

Open questions

• Will carriers expose NMFTA and DCSA APIs directly to agents as tools, wrap them in A2A skills, or do both?
• Who attests that an agent’s key belongs to a specific USDOT number or Canadian carrier? A2A leaves that to others.
• Status events can arrive late or out of order. Agents need rules for reconciling them, such as preferring the latest event timestamp.
• Exception handling crosses three companies: shipper, carrier and receiver. Who owns the task when all three agents are involved?