Highway

ARK organizes Highway into Connect Core for carrier onboarding and monitoring, Load Lock for load-level protection and Secure Rate Confirmation delivery, Trusted Freight Exchange (TFX) for freight posting and offers, and Load Lock+ for ELD-based Track and Trace.

Setup checklist

1. Confirm your Highway account access.
2. Open Settings, then Integrations.
3. Select Highway.
4. Enter the Highway API key and choose Production. Use Staging only when ARK TMS support asks you to test.
5. Configure each Highway product your organization uses: Connect Core, Load Lock, TFX, or Load Lock+.
6. Under Load Lock, enable Load Lock monitoring to enroll eligible FTL loads in Highway throughout their lifecycle. Load Lock+ also enables Load Lock and adds tracking.
7. Configure Secure Rate Confirmation independently, then choose PDF attachment or ARK signing link.
8. Under TFX, enable TFX load posting when users should be able to post loads and manage offers. Publishing an individual load to TFX still requires an explicit Post action.
9. Save settings.
10. Configure the onboarding packet, carrier alert, Secure Rate Confirmation, Load Lock alert, and Track and Trace webhooks in Highway for the capabilities your organization uses.
11. Contact support for initial bulk import from monitored carriers if needed.

Product webhook setup

Highway settings group webhook URLs and configuration state by product. Connect Core owns onboarding packet and carrier alert callbacks, Load Lock owns Secure Rate Confirmation and Load Lock alert callbacks, and Load Lock+ owns Track and Trace callbacks. Add the applicable URLs in Highway, use the shared provisioned per-organization Bearer credential, then return to ARK TMS and confirm each webhook shows as configured.

The Highway product settings are shown together. Your Highway subscription determines which enabled products the provider will process; contact support if an enabled product is not available in your Highway account.

Treat the Highway API key and webhook Bearer credential as secrets and share them only with authorized administrators. Webhook tokens are managed server-side and are not displayed in ARK TMS.

Secure Rate Confirmation events use:

POST /api/highway/webhook/rate-confirmation

Verify the connection

1. Preview or search for one carrier by Highway ID, DOT, or MC number.
2. Sync carrier profile and monitoring details.
3. Review alerts, compliance information, documents, contacts, and packet details.
4. Compare the synced profile with Highway.
5. Approve, reject, block, or keep inactive according to your policy.
6. If secure rate confirmations are enabled, send a test rate confirmation for a Highway-connected carrier and confirm its delivery status updates in ARK TMS.

Normal usage

Use Highway data as part of your review process, then make the final carrier approval decision according to your team's operating policy.

Review Highway alerts before assigning a carrier to a load. If a carrier's risk or monitoring status changes, update the carrier status according to your policy.

Highway Load Lock alerts appear in the main navbar Notifications tab. Matched load alerts notify the user who posted the load to Highway and assigned load stakeholders. Unresolved Load Lock alerts notify organization admins so the alert can still be reviewed when ARK TMS cannot match it to a load or carrier.

When Highway secure rate confirmations are enabled, dispatch users send the initial rate confirmation and updates before acceptance through Highway. Organization admins choose the PDF attachment or ARK signing link method in Settings > Integrations > Highway. After acceptance, Send Updated RateCon emails a separate PDF attachment through ARK TMS and leaves the accepted delivery unchanged. Disabling the capability restores ARK TMS as the default sender. ARK-generated PDFs remain in the load files; Highway signed or audit PDFs are tracked as provider delivery metadata.

While Load Lock is enabled, ARK automatically enrolls eligible FTL loads in Highway as soon as their required data is ready, including Available loads. ARK keeps that one Highway resource current through carrier assignment, pickup, delivery, or cancellation. Enabling Load Lock also queues eligible active loads that already exist. This does not publish freight to TFX, add offer rates, or require a posting user.

TFX publication is independent from Load Lock monitoring. An authorized user can explicitly publish the same canonical Highway resource to TFX; removing it from TFX only removes carrier visibility. If Load Lock is active, monitoring continues. Disabling a product does not delete a Highway resource that ARK already created; ARK continues synchronizing it to a truthful terminal state.

For reefer postings, ARK defaults Highway's minimum and maximum temperature fields from the load's required temperature range. When editing an existing posting, the values already stored on that Highway posting remain the starting values until the user changes them.

When Load Lock+ is enabled, ARK TMS can apply Highway Track and Trace locations, arrival and departure milestones, and assigned vehicle information to eligible loads. Operational controls and observed carrier fleet visibility appear only when enabled for the deployment and organization.

The Carriers-list Sync action and Highway Sync dialog refresh the carrier profile and onboarding packet. These actions send an invitation only when onboarding is incomplete and no recent invitation already covers the carrier. If the invitation cannot be sent, the carrier sync remains saved; follow the result to enable invitations, request external carrier invite access, or choose an email in Invite to Highway. The carrier-profile Sync HWY action requires an existing Highway connection and directs you to invite an unconnected carrier first. The invite action syncs an existing Highway connection instead of sending a duplicate invitation.

Manual sync can recover completed Highway onboarding packets and documents that are not yet shown in ARK TMS. Recovered documents appear in the carrier files area, and the sync result may include document counts or warnings.

New Highway carriers can stay inactive while an invite or packet is still pending. Existing active carriers may show an onboarding-incomplete warning when Highway paperwork is not complete; normal dispatch checks still determine eligibility.

If a Highway invite or sync succeeds but ARK TMS shows a warning, review the carrier profile, onboarding status, and synced information before retrying or approving the carrier.

Highway may sync carrier profile details even when a document file cannot be downloaded. Compare the carrier profile with Highway before deciding whether a missing file blocks approval.

Only one carrier onboarding provider can be active at a time. Turning on Highway onboarding disables RMIS and MyCarrierPortal onboarding actions.

Troubleshooting

• Carrier not found: confirm the legal name, MC number, DOT number, or Highway profile.
• Identifier rejected: use a real DOT, Highway ID, or MC docket value; all-zero or malformed values cannot be sent to Highway.
• Sync asks for an invite: the carrier is not connected in Highway yet.
• Duplicate carrier conflict: resolve or archive duplicate carrier profiles in ARK TMS that share the same DOT or MC/MX/FF identity before retrying sync.
• Pending invite or paperwork warning: review the Highway packet before making the carrier active; normal dispatch checks still determine eligibility.
• Sync or invite action missing: confirm Connect Core is enabled and no other carrier onboarding provider is active.
• Alerts do not match: compare the carrier profile directly in Highway.
• Documents missing: confirm the documents are available in Highway and sync again. If the documents belong to a completed onboarding packet, use manual sync on the connected carrier.
• Webhook updates missing: confirm each webhook shows as configured in ARK TMS and the corresponding event is enabled in Highway. If setup looks correct, contact support.
• Rate confirmation updates missing: confirm secure rate confirmations are enabled and the Secure Rate Confirmation webhook shows as configured.
• Highway rate confirmation unavailable: confirm the capability is enabled and the carrier is connected in Highway.
• New FTL load missing from Highway: confirm Load Lock monitoring and the Highway credential are configured, then confirm the load has complete stops, schedules, mileage, and equipment. If TFX alone is enabled, automatic creation applies only to TFX-supported Available loads. If the load is still missing, contact support with the ARK load number.
• Load Lock alert missing from Notifications: confirm Load Lock monitoring is enabled, the Load Lock webhook shows as configured, and the affected load shows “In Highway” or “Posted to Highway TFX.” If the alert is still missing, contact support with the ARK load number and Highway alert details.
• Track and Trace updates missing: confirm Load Lock+ is enabled, its webhook shows as configured, and the load has an active Highway tracking session.
• Sync completed with warning: review the carrier profile and onboarding status, then sync again if the synced information still looks outdated.
• Status looks outdated: refresh the carrier profile before making an approval decision.
• Monitored carriers need initial import: contact support.