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Concept
Common carrier
Summary
A common carrier in common law countries (corresponding to a public carrier in some civil law systems, usually called simply a carrier) is a person or company that transports goods or people for any person or company and is responsible for any possible loss of the goods during transport. A common carrier offers its services to the general public under license or authority provided by a regulatory body, which has usually been granted "ministerial authority" by the legislation that created it. The regulatory body may create, interpret, and enforce its regulations upon the common carrier (subject to judicial review) with independence and finality as long as it acts within the bounds of the enabling legislation.
A common carrier (also called a public carrier in British English) is distinguished from a contract carrier, which is a carrier that transports goods for only a certain number of clients and that can refuse to transport goods for anyone else, and from a private carrier. A common carrier holds itself out to provide service to the general public without discrimination (to meet the needs of the regulator's quasi judicial role of impartiality toward the public's interest) for the "public convenience and necessity." A common carrier must further demonstrate to the regulator that it is "fit, willing, and able" to provide those services for which it is granted authority. Common carriers typically transport persons or goods according to defined and published routes, time schedules, and rate tables upon the approval of regulators. Public airlines, railroads, bus lines, taxicab companies, phone companies, internet service providers, cruise ships, motor carriers (i.e., canal operating companies, trucking companies), and other freight companies generally operate as common carriers. Under US law, an ocean freight forwarder cannot act as a common carrier.
The term common carrier is a common law term and is seldom used in Continental Europe because it has no exact equivalent in civil-law systems.
Official source
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Related publications (3)
Is Carrier Choice Different for 3PLs and other End-shippers? Some Preliminary Findings
As companies have increasingly sought to outsource their non-essential activities, there has been a dramatic rise in the use of the services of external companies (often referred to as Third Party Logistics Companies or 3PLs) to organize transportation log ...
2007Proposal of a Methodology for Comparing Electromagnetic Soil Water Content Sensors
Performance differences in the growing number of electromagnetic (EM) sensing systems designed to predict soil water content from dielectric permittivity estimates suggests the need for a standardized characterization methodology. The objectives of this st ...
2005Related concepts (6)
Logistics
Logistics is a part of supply chain management that deals with the efficient forward and reverse flow of goods, services, and related information from the point of origin to the point of consumption according to the needs of customers. Logistics management is a component that holds the supply chain together. The resources managed in logistics may include tangible goods such as materials, equipment, and supplies, as well as food and other consumable items.
Internet service provider
An Internet service provider (ISP) is an organization that provides services for accessing, using, managing, or participating in the Internet. ISPs can be organized in various forms, such as commercial, community-owned, non-profit, or otherwise privately owned. Internet services typically provided by ISPs can include Internet access, Internet transit, domain name registration, web hosting, Usenet service, and colocation. An ISP typically serves as the access point or the gateway that provides a user access to everything available on the Internet.
Civil law (legal system)
Civil law is a legal system originating in mainland Europe and adopted in much of the world. The civil law system is intellectualized within the framework of Roman law, and with core principles codified into a referable system, which serves as the primary source of law. The civil law system is often contrasted with the common law system, which originated in medieval England. Whereas the civil law takes the form of legal codes, the law in common law systems historically came from uncodified case law that arose as a result of judicial decisions, recognising prior court decisions as legally binding precedent.