Question: Recently, one of our invoices for an intrastate move from Dallas to El Paso was returned to us by an auditing firm for correction. The auditing firm referred to a past ruling that said that this move should have been rated as an interstate move instead of intrastate even though we are servicing two points within Texas. Are they correct?

Answer: The "ruling" that the auditor is referring to may be the case of Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission vs. Arrow Carrier Corporation. This case produced one of the landmark decisions regarding the intrastate vs. interstate nature of shipments by motor vehicle. In this case there were four criteria established:

(1) absence of subterfuge in routing,
(2) if the route of the shipment was reasonable in light of the degree of circuitry,
(3) the economics involved, and
(4) the incidental character of the intrastate traffic.

The thrust of the Pennsylvania case was that if the carrier has a viable economic or operational reason for using an interstate routing between two points in the same state, then the transportation is considered interstate in nature; but, if the carrier runs across the state line merely for the purpose of circumventing state regulations, without any sound reason for doing so, the shipment remains intrastate in nature. In the Dallas to El Paso movement the distance is actually shorter (by 10 miles) using the interstate route on US 180 through a corner of New Mexico. The intrastate route on 1-20 solely through Texas is 10 miles longer (629 miles vs. 619 miles). As you know, the Mileage Guide, which is also on file with the Texas DOT as a governing distance publication, is based on shortest miles between any two points using authorized highways, i.e. 80,000 lbs GVW, 10 foot lane widths, and 13' 6" vertical clearance. Therefore, while intuitively the movement should have been intrastate, the governing Mileage Guide provides the shortest distance based on an interstate route. (If the Mileage Guide were not also on file in Texas, an alternative argument might be possible. But since the Guide also governs TX intrastate movements, we see no other alternative).