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

An apportioned vehicle carries a licence plate issued by its base jurisdiction that reads 'Apportioned' (or 'APP', 'PRP' for prorate, or the local equivalent) in place of the ordinary commercial designation. It is the only plate the power unit carries, and it is valid in every IRP member jurisdiction. Trailers are not apportioned; they carry an ordinary trailer plate from the base jurisdiction. Some jurisdictions issue a validation sticker for the registration year; others rely on the cab card alone.

The cab card is the registration document, and it is what an inspector actually reads. It names the registrant and the base jurisdiction account and fleet number, identifies the unit by number and VIN, states the registered gross weight — often per jurisdiction, since a carrier may register different weights in different places — lists the jurisdictions the vehicle is registered for, which since the Full Reciprocity Plan is all of them, and shows the registration year and expiry date. It must be carried in the vehicle, in paper or, where the jurisdiction allows, electronic form, and an expired or missing cab card is treated as no registration at all.

The IRP account number is the carrier's identifier with the base jurisdiction, usually paired with a fleet number where a carrier runs more than one fleet. It appears on the cab card and on every application, supplement and renewal, and it is what the jurisdiction's audit staff reference when they ask for distance records. It is distinct from the USDOT number, the IFTA licence number and, in Ontario, the CVOR number, all of which the same truck also carries and all of which an inspection can check.

At a scale, the officer reads the plate, matches it to the cab card, checks the cab card's expiry and its registered weight against the scale reading, and confirms the jurisdiction they are standing in is on it. Then the IFTA decals and licence, the ELD, and the driver's documents. A truck over its registered weight, a cab card that has expired, or a vehicle that should be apportioned and is not is the citation. Fleets that keep IRP, IFTA and ELD current from one telematics dataset, with document copies in a MyGeotab add-in such as GeoDocs, tend to have the shortest stops.