Three rules that never bend
Most “top 10 auto transport companies” lists are advertising. Ours is arithmetic. These three rules are enforced in the software itself, not in a policy document.
A score cannot be purchased
No advertising spend, partnership, subscription or billing event of any kind can write to a TrustScore. The payment system and the scoring system share no connection.
Sponsored is always separate
Paid placement is labelled and displayed apart from organic rankings. A sponsored listing never enters the ranking order and never changes the score shown next to it.
AI reads, it does not score
AI classifies what each review is about and whether it's positive or negative. The score itself is produced by a fixed formula. AI never invents or adjusts a number.
From raw review to a single number
Reviews are the raw input. The TrustScore is the output. Eight steps sit in between, and each one feeds the next.
Collect
Reviews are gathered from four external review platforms plus Transportvibe's own verified review system.
Tag with AI
Each review is read and tagged: which of the eight service metrics it mentions, and whether the sentiment is positive, negative or neutral.
Aggregate
Tags are counted per company, per platform, per metric.
Weight
Three weights are applied: which platform the review came from, how much data exists, and how old it is.
Combine
Weighted results from every platform are merged into one rate per metric.
Convert to points
Each metric rate is converted to points on a fixed scale.
Score
Points roll up into the six pillars, and the pillars sum to a TrustScore out of 100.
Explain
Red flags, attention points, strengths and a plain-English verdict are generated from the finished score.
No company gets a manual pass, a custom formula or a suppressed metric. A company that has never spoken to us is scored identically to one that has.
The six pillars
Eight service metrics roll into six pillars. The pillar weights reflect what customers actually complain about and praise most often in auto transport, not what's easiest to measure.
Reputation
Whether the company answers the phone, returns calls, and keeps you informed while your vehicle is in transit. This is the single most-cited factor in both positive and negative reviews across the industry, which is why it carries the most weight.
Performance
Did they do what they promised, when they promised it? Pickup windows honoured and delivery dates met. Operational reliability is the second heaviest pillar because a missed pickup cascades into every other part of the experience.
Pricing
Whether the price quoted is the price paid. Bait-and-switch quoting — a low number to win the booking, then a rise before pickup — is the most common complaint category in auto transport, so it gets its own pillar rather than being folded into service quality.
Experience
The physical shipment itself. Did the vehicle arrive in the condition it left in, and was the driver professional, careful and on time at both ends?
Compliance
What happens when something goes wrong. A company that owns a problem and fixes it can recover trust. One that stops responding once there's a damage claim signals something systemic. Valid FMCSA authority is also checked here as a pass/fail condition — see the hard rules below.
Internal
A small bonus earned by accumulating verified reviews from customers who booked and can be confirmed as real. It rewards companies whose customers are willing to be identified and verified. It is capped at 5 points and is not for sale — it is earned only through verified review volume and rating.
You don't have to take the total on faith. Open any company profile and you'll see all six pillar scores, so you can tell the difference between a 78 built on great communication and a 78 built on cheap, reliable delivery with poor phone support.
Where the data comes from
A score built on one platform is easy to game. We read across five, and we weight them differently because they are not equally reliable.
| Source | Weight | Why this weight |
|---|---|---|
| Transportvibe verified | 1.10 | Highest trust. Reviewer identity and booking are verified, and the review is collected as structured data rather than free text. |
| 1.00 | The baseline. Very high volume and difficult to manipulate at scale. | |
| Trustpilot | 0.90 | Strong signal, but solicited more aggressively by companies than Google. |
| BBB | 0.85 | Genuine institutional value, discounted slightly for accreditation bias. |
| ConsumerAffairs | 0.70 | Complaint-heavy by design, which skews the sample negative. |
What every review gets tagged for
A single review can be tagged with several metrics. A review that says the price rose but the driver was excellent contributes a negative pricing tag and a positive driver quality tag — not one overall rating.
We link, we don't republish
We show each platform's aggregate rating and review count and link out to it. We do not reproduce other platforms' review text on Transportvibe. Reviews written on Transportvibe are published here in full, subject to our review policy.
Three weights applied to every data point
A raw percentage of positive reviews is a bad measure. Ninety percent positive from four reviews written in 2021 is not the same as ninety percent from four hundred reviews written this year. Three weights correct for that.
Source weight
How much this platform's signal is worth, relative to Google as the baseline.
- Transportvibe verified1.10
- Google1.00
- Trustpilot0.90
- BBB0.85
- ConsumerAffairs0.70
Confidence weight
How much evidence exists for this specific metric. Thin data is treated as indicative, not conclusive.
- 200+ mentions1.00
- 50–199 mentions0.85
- 20–49 mentions0.70
- Under 20 mentions0.50
Recency weight
How old the review is. Companies change — management, dispatchers, carrier networks. Old evidence counts for less.
- 0–90 days1.00
- 3–12 months0.85
- 1–2 years0.65
- Over 2 years0.40
A company with 50 recent reviews can outscore a company with 200 old ones. A company that was excellent five years ago and has since declined will see its score fall even if nobody deletes the old praise. The score describes the company as it is now, not as it once was.
A worked example
Here is the arithmetic for a single metric — pricing — on a single platform, using illustrative numbers so you can follow the mechanics.
// Pricing mentions for this company on Google positive = 18 negative = 4 neutral = 2 // neutral is excluded from the rate positive_rate = 18 / (18 + 4) = 0.818 source_weight = 1.00 // Google confidence_weight = 0.70 // 24 mentions, in the 20–49 band recency_weight = 0.92 // weighted average age of those reviews source_score = 0.818 × 1.00 × 0.70 × 0.92 = 0.527 // The same calculation runs for Trustpilot, BBB, // ConsumerAffairs and Transportvibe verified reviews. // All source scores are then combined into one final // pricing rate, which converts to points out of 15.
If a platform has no pricing mentions at all for this company, it is simply left out — its weight is not redistributed to the others. Missing data lowers confidence rather than being filled in with a guess.
What each score band means
The number alone isn't much use without a frame. Every score maps to one of six classifications, shown as a badge wherever the company appears.
| Score | Classification | What it means for you |
|---|---|---|
| 85–100 | Highly Trusted | Consistently strong across every dimension we measure. Safe to shortlist without heavy additional research. |
| 70–84 | Trusted | Strong overall with minor gaps in one or two areas. Check the pillar breakdown for the specific weak spot before booking. |
| 55–69 | Mixed | Significant variation in customer outcomes. Some people have a fine experience and some don't. Read the attention points and get everything in writing. |
| 35–54 | Caution | Multiple documented negative signals. Proceed only with a written, binding quote and clear expectations, or choose a higher-scoring alternative. |
| 0–34 | Avoid | Strong evidence of poor service or systemic problems. We do not recommend these companies in any of our tools. |
| — | Unrated | Not enough review data to classify. This is not a bad score — it is the absence of one. New and small companies commonly sit here. |
A company with no score has not failed anything. It simply has too little public review history for us to say anything reliable. We show it as Unrated rather than assigning a low number, because a fabricated low score would be as misleading as a purchased high one.
Rules that override the arithmetic
A few conditions are serious enough to bypass the formula entirely.
Every company is checked daily against the FMCSA register. If operating authority is revoked, inactive or missing, the TrustScore is forced to 0 regardless of how good the reviews are. A company without authority cannot legally arrange your shipment, and no amount of five-star feedback changes that.
The Reputation pillar scores zero and the company is flagged as insufficient data. This prevents a single glowing review — from anyone at all — from producing a high score.
They are excluded from every metric, not simply down-weighted. This applies to reviews from all sources, including reviews left on Transportvibe.
The full calculation runs daily for every company. It also runs immediately when a verified Transportvibe review is published, when a booking completes, or when FMCSA status changes. Every recalculation is recorded, so a score's history can be traced.
What the TrustScore is — and isn't
A methodology page that only lists strengths isn't a methodology page. Here is what this number can and cannot tell you.
What it does tell you
What it doesn't tell you
Transportvibe's founder separately owns Safeeds Transport Inc, an auto transport brokerage that appears in our directory and competes with other companies listed here. Safeeds is scored by the same formula as everyone else, with no manual adjustment, and is labelled with an ownership disclosure everywhere it appears — in the directory, in comparisons and in any tool that recommends it.
How to improve a TrustScore
There is exactly one way, and it is not a purchase.
Serve customers better
Answer the phone. Send updates without being asked. Honour the quoted price. Every pillar is downstream of real customer experience, and recent experience counts most.
Claim your profile
Claiming is free. It lets you correct company details, respond publicly to reviews and see your full pillar breakdown. Claiming does not change your score.
Dispute specific data
If a review is fraudulent or attributed to the wrong company, tell us with evidence. We investigate and recalculate if the data was wrong. We do not remove accurate negative reviews.
We will not raise a score, suppress a red flag, hide a negative review, or move a company up the organic rankings in exchange for payment — advertising, sponsorship, partnership or otherwise. Anyone who tells you they can arrange this is not speaking for Transportvibe. If you're offered it, report it to us.
TrustScore FAQ
Can a company pay to raise its TrustScore?
How often does a TrustScore change?
Why does a company with great reviews have a low score?
Why does a company show as Unrated instead of a number?
Does AI decide the score?
Do you delete negative reviews if a company complains?
Why does Google count for more than the other platforms?
Transportvibe's owner also owns a brokerage listed here. How is that handled?
Now put it to use
Browse every scored company, or compare two side by side on the same criteria — pillar by pillar, with the reasoning shown.