Wiktionary
n. A subcontractor that can be a commercial carrier, but most often provides capacity (trucks and drivers, with or without trailers or chassis) to either commercial or private carriers under a contract for services.
Wikipedia
In the United States and Canada, as is with many small business owned by the same person who is running day-to-day operations. Owner operators are found in many business models and franchising companies in many different industries like restaurant chains, health care, logistics, maintenance, repair, and operations.
In trucking, it is a self-employed commercial truck driver or a small business that operates trucks for transporting goods over highways for its customers.
The Motor Carrier Act of 1980 deregulated the industry and made it easier for manufacturers to set their own prices on shipping goods, and also allowed owner-operators to be more successful by taking some of the control out of the hands of the larger motor carriers. It was now possible to find a carrier willing to haul goods for what customers wanted to pay, rather than what the larger carriers' rates were.
- An owner-operator is free to either haul free-lance (non-committal to any one firm or product), or enter into a lease agreement to dedicate their equipment to one customer or product.
- The owner-operator typically has to pay higher rates on insurance due to smaller size than most larger companies, meaning they have to charge more to balance the cost.
- There are many things to consider before becoming an owner-operator including business set up, accounting, type of vehicle and licences.
Usage examples of "owner-operator".
That earned them the poisonous looks of every other driver on 1-90, especially the cowboy-hatted K-Whopper owner-operators who thought the unlimited speed limit in eastern Montana was just great, plus the occasional lawyer--they had to be lawyers--in German muscle cars who blazed by their truck as though it were a cattle-feeder.