Carrier Geography Analysis

Analysis

· as of June 15, 2026

The sharpest divergence in this dataset is between carrier count and fleet concentration: states that rank modestly by registration volume often carry disproportionate shares of total power units, which suggests the registered-carrier count is a poor proxy for actual freight capacity in those markets. Massachusetts illustrates this most clearly — it ranks 19th by carrier count at 47,936 registrations, yet its carriers average 98.2 power units each, the highest of any major US state, implying a concentration of large, multi-unit fleets operating under Massachusetts authority. Georgia presents a similar pattern: with 134,467 registered carriers (4.95% of the national total), Georgia carriers average 58.7 power units, well above the national mix suggested by states like Michigan (25.7) and Wisconsin (25.4), which have comparable or higher carrier counts. Florida, the third-largest state by carrier count at 189,442, also runs above the median at 48.4 average power units, consistent with its role as a major freight corridor terminus. California and Texas, the two largest states by registration at 374,441 and 248,130 respectively, average 33.8 and 31.5 power units per carrier — below several mid-tier states — which likely reflects the large share of owner-operators and small fleets that tend to register in high-population, high-economic-activity states. The dataset also records registrations across 115 jurisdiction codes, including Canadian provinces such as Ontario (10,794 carriers) and British Columbia (3,850), as well as US territories and a small number of entries with non-standard codes, which may indicate cross-border operating authority filings rather than domicile. The total registered driver count of 15,762,436 across all jurisdictions, set against 2,715,197 carrier entities, produces an average of roughly 5.8 drivers per carrier nationally, though this figure is heavily skewed by the large-fleet states. Over the trailing 60-month window captured here, the breadth of jurisdictions present in FMCSA records has expanded beyond the 50 states, reflecting the agency's role in tracking interstate operating authority for any entity moving freight across US borders.