Research standard
Protocol v1.0Frozen July 23, 2026No responses collected

2026 Carrier Services Benchmark

Wave 1 will examine freight factoring used by independent carriers and small fleets. This protocol fixes the questions, screening rules, minimum samples, and publication limits before AICA sees a response.

Population

U.S. motor carriers and small fleets that currently use a factoring provider or used one during the prior 12 months.

Instrument

A short structured questionnaire covering cost, contract, workflow, reliability, support, recommendation, and switching.

Output

Descriptive results with counts and uncertainty—not awards or rankings until every publication gate below is satisfied.

Locked before collection

Publication gates

These are minimum gates, not promises to publish. AICA may withhold a result when response quality, concentration, uncertainty, or another disclosed limitation makes the comparison misleading.

100 screened responses

Category snapshot

A directional category summary may be published with fleet-size splits and explicit self-selection limits.

30 recent users per provider

Provider statistics

A provider can receive its own descriptive result only after meeting the same eligibility and recency rules.

250 total; 5 eligible providers

Ranked comparison

Every ranked provider must have at least 30 screened responses. Uncertainty and ties remain visible.

Screening and verification

A submitted USDOT number will be checked against the public FMCSA SAFER Company Snapshot for carrier status and basic fleet plausibility. The snapshot is a screening source; it does not prove that the individual completing the questionnaire controls the carrier.

AICA will therefore call these “screened carrier responses,” not verified identities, unless a later confirmation step provides stronger evidence. USDOT numbers and contact details will never appear beside published answers.

FMCSA SAFER Company Snapshot

Exclusion rules

  • No valid USDOT number or no matching carrier record
  • Provider, broker, affiliate, or marketing-agency employee responses
  • No use of the named provider during the stated eligibility window
  • Materially incomplete, internally inconsistent, or obvious duplicate submissions
  • Responses submitted after a carrier has already contributed to the same wave, unless a documented correction replaces the earlier record

Wave 1 questionnaire

Wording may receive non-substantive accessibility edits before launch. The measured subjects, eligibility window, scales, and response categories will not change after collection begins.

  1. 1USDOT number for public-record screening; never displayed with a published response
  2. 2Fleet size: 1, 2–5, 6–20, or 21+ trucks
  3. 3Age of current operating authority
  4. 4Current factoring provider, or most recent provider used within the past 12 months
  5. 5How long the carrier has used that provider
  6. 6Recourse, non-recourse, or not sure
  7. 7Typical factoring-rate band and separately charged fees
  8. 8Contract length, automatic renewal, and notice-window awareness
  9. 9Typical funding speed after submitting a complete invoice packet
  10. 10Broker-approval and credit-check experience
  11. 11Value, reliability, and support ratings on the same 0–10 scale
  12. 12Likelihood to recommend, likelihood to switch, and one optional open-text explanation

Analysis plan

  • Report response counts beside every result.
  • Use medians and distributions for cost and funding time.
  • Show fleet-size groups rather than hiding them in one average.
  • Display uncertainty for proportions and provider-level ratings.
  • Do not manufacture a winner when results are materially tied.
  • Publish corrections and methodology changes with dates.

Known limitations

This will be a voluntary internet survey, not a random sample of every U.S. carrier. Results may overrepresent carriers with very positive or negative experiences. Public-record screening reduces obvious invalid entries but does not eliminate impersonation, memory error, or undisclosed commercial influence.

Those limits will appear with every published finding. No affiliate, sponsor, or provider payment will alter eligibility, scoring, thresholds, or editorial conclusions.

Current status

Protocol published before data collection

The response system is the next implementation step. Until it is auditable and durable, AICA will not claim survey participation or publish provider rankings.

Use the current factoring guides