Why we built this

We did not set out to build software. We set out to keep a limousine company on the road, and the California Public Utilities Commission taught us, the hard way, how many separate dates can end that.

A company we bought, and the paperwork that came with it

B&W Limo has run airport shuttles and charter work in Los Angeles for years. We bought the company from its previous owners in 2024. The vehicles were good, the drivers were good, the customers were loyal. What we did not fully appreciate was that a TCP authority is not one license. It is a bundle of filings that all have to stay true at the same time: the permit itself, an insurance certificate the insurer files directly with the Commission, workers' compensation, quarterly PUCTRA fee statements, vehicle registrations, driver records, a drug-and-alcohol testing program, and an equipment list that has to match every one of those.

Each item lives in a different place. The permit is in the CPUC's portal. Insurance is filed by a broker you never see. Registration is at the DMV. PUCTRA is a form and a payment. The equipment list is a table inside the portal that nobody looks at until something breaks. None of them talk to each other, and nobody sends you one calendar.

How it fell apart

It was not one big mistake. It was several small ones landing in the same season.

A 28-passenger bus that the previous owners had sold was still on our equipment list. Because the Commission sets insurance minimums by the largest vehicle on that list, our new liability policy, which was correct for the vehicles we actually ran, came in far below what the stale bus required. The insurer's filing was rejected as deficient. We did not know the bus was still listed until the deficiency letter arrived.

At the same time the registration on our Cadillac Escalade expired. Renewing it needed the insurer to electronically report the policy to the DMV first, which takes days and is invisible to the operator. While that sat in a queue, the Commission's analyst asked for proof of current registration before he would process anything else.

And an audit turned up two PUCTRA quarters from 2022 that had never been filed, before we owned the company. The fees were small. The consequence was not: an authority can be suspended, and then revoked, for an unfiled quarter, and a revoked authority means a fresh application, new fees, and weeks of no legal work.

What reinstatement is taking

Getting back is a project, and as I write this we are still in it: a new liability policy sized to the real fleet, workers' compensation on file, the phantom bus removed from the equipment list, the terminal address corrected after a property sale, the registration renewal waiting on the insurer's DMV report, a Clearinghouse designation for drug testing, and the back quarters filed and paid. Each step waits on a person at another agency, and each one produces another letter with another deadline inside it.

Somewhere in the middle of this, I did what I do for a living. I have spent my career in enterprise technology, building systems that watch other systems. So I wrote a script that checked our CPUC record every night and told me when anything changed. Then I added the dates from the letters. Then the insurance expiry, the registration, the medical cards, the PUCTRA calendar. Then I realized that every other small carrier in California was flying just as blind as we had been.

What keepmytcp does differently

The Commission publishes the status of every charter-party carrier in the state. We read all of it, every night, for every carrier, and we keep the history. When your authority status, an insurance filing, or a certificate changes on the Commission's record, you know the same night, not when a letter arrives two weeks later.

Then we put every date that can suspend you on one calendar: permit expiry, insurance, workers' comp, PUCTRA file-by, penalty and suspension dates, vehicle registration, driver licenses, medical cards, Clearinghouse queries. Upload a certificate and we read the dates off it. You get reminders at 60, 30, 14 and 7 days, and then every day until it is done, with the exact next step for each one.

We are not the CPUC, and we are not lawyers. You still file, you still certify, you still pay. We make sure you never again find out about a deadline from a deficiency letter.

Who this is for

Owner-operators and small fleets. The companies where the person driving the car is also the person doing the paperwork, at night, after the last airport run. That was us. It probably is you.

If you want to know more about who is behind this, there is an About page. If you want to understand the rules first, start with the guides. And if your authority is already suspended or revoked, read this one first. We have been there.