What Does IRP Registration Look Like? The Cab Card, Apportioned Plate and Account Number

IRP registration looks like three things: a cab card carried in the cab (the registration document itself), an apportioned plate on the power unit, and an account number with the base jurisdiction. The plate comes from the base jurisdiction and reads 'Apportioned' (or 'APP', 'PRP' for prorate, or the local equivalent) where an ordinary commercial plate would show its designation. It is the only plate the power unit carries, and it is valid in every IRP member jurisdiction. Trailers are not apportioned and usually carry an ordinary trailer plate from the base jurisdiction; trailer registration follows each jurisdiction's own law. Some jurisdictions issue a validation sticker for the registration year, and others rely on the cab card alone.

The cab card is the registration document itself, and it is the thing an inspector reads. It names the registrant and the base jurisdiction account and fleet number, and identifies the unit by number and VIN. It states the registered gross weight, often per jurisdiction, since a carrier may register different weights in different places. It lists the jurisdictions the vehicle is registered for, which since the Full Reciprocity Plan means all of them, and shows the registration year and expiry date. The driver must carry it in the vehicle, on paper or in electronic form where the jurisdiction allows. Operating without a current cab card is a violation in its own right, and the penalty depends on the jurisdiction.

A cab card is a registration: for an apportioned truck, it is the only registration certificate there is. The IRP Plan defines it as the evidence of registration, other than the plate, that the base jurisdiction issues for an apportioned vehicle, and the cab card and the apportioned plate are the sole registration credentials that vehicle receives. The difference from an ordinary registration is reach, since one card covers every IRP jurisdiction printed on it.

An ordinary truck registration (the vehicle permit in Ontario, the registration certificate in Quebec, the registration card from a US state) is issued for one province or state and shows one registered weight. A vehicle that qualifies for IRP and leaves its home jurisdiction on that registration alone needs a trip permit for each jurisdiction it enters. The cab card replaces those permits. The carrier pays every jurisdiction's share through the base jurisdiction, and the card lists each jurisdiction with the weight registered there.

Those shares are set by the distance the fleet travelled in each jurisdiction during the reporting period, and an IRP audit checks the reported distances against operational records, which the Plan says can include data from on-board recording devices. The High Point GPS platform records mileage by jurisdiction from each trip, the same figures behind its IFTA reports, so the distance schedule for an IRP renewal can start from recorded trips.

The IRP account number identifies the carrier with its base jurisdiction, usually paired with a fleet number when a carrier runs more than one fleet. It appears on the cab card and on every application, supplement and renewal, and the jurisdiction's audit staff use it when they ask for distance records. It is separate from the USDOT number, the IFTA licence number and, in Ontario, the CVOR number. The same truck carries all of those too, and an inspection can check any of them.

At a scale, the officer reads the plate and matches it to the cab card. They check the cab card's expiry, compare its registered weight with the scale reading, and confirm that the jurisdiction they are standing in is listed. After that come the IFTA decals and licence, the ELD and the driver's documents. The usual citations are a truck over its registered weight, an expired cab card, or a vehicle that should be apportioned and is not. Keeping IRP, IFTA and ELD records current from one telematics dataset, with document copies in a High Point GPS platform add-in such as GeoDocs, puts the documents an inspector asks for in one place.

Every cab card carries the same fields, and inspectors read them in the same order. A driver who knows what each field means can answer questions at the scale instead of handing over the card and waiting.