Cassandra Gaines expands transport risk framework with BAVRA Standard for shippers

Just months after introducing a framework for carrier vetting, Carrier Assure founder and CEO Cassandra Gaines has released a companion standard aimed at another link in the transportation chain: how shippers select and oversee freight brokers.

The new BAVRA Standard — short for Broker Assessment, Verification, Risk and Accountability — is a 34-page framework designed to help shippers establish a "reasonable and defensible" process for selecting and monitoring brokers, freight forwarders, managed transportation providers and motor carriers that also hold brokerage authority.

Gaines describes it as a companion to the CAVRA Standard, which focuses on reasonable motor carrier selection.

Unlike CAVRA, which asks whether a broker reasonably selected a motor carrier, BAVRA examines whether a shipper reasonably selected the transportation intermediary responsible for arranging freight.

Gaines said the framework was developed to address what she views as a growing blind spot in transportation risk management: many shippers carefully vet suppliers across their business but perform only limited due diligence before entrusting freight to a broker.

"Transportation responsibility begins before a motor carrier arrives at a facility," Gaines wrote in the introduction to the framework. She said that the initial decision to select a broker can influence public safety, cargo security, insurance recovery, customer service and ultimately which carrier and driver are placed on the highway.

According to Gaines, many shippers still rely primarily on confirming a broker's operating authority, bond, insurance coverage and contract.

While those are important baseline requirements, she said they do not answer a more important question: whether the broker has written carrier-vetting standards, operational controls, trained personnel and risk-management procedures appropriate for the freight being moved.