How to find UK haulage and fleet leads from DVSA operator licence data

If you sell anything to UK haulage, coach or bus operators — telematics, fuel cards, tyres, trucks, insurance, leasing, training, drivers — the operator licence register is one of the most useful free lead lists in the country. Every goods vehicle (HGV/LGV) and PSV operator in Great Britain needs a licence from the Traffic Commissioners. Those licences, including authorised fleet size and operating-centre postcodes, are published by the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA).

This data is official and free. You can look up a single operator on GOV.UK, or download the whole register and build a lead list yourself. This guide walks through both, honestly, then shows a shortcut if you want a clean, de-duplicated, change-tracked file without wrangling eight regional CSVs every month.

The official sources

Two public front doors exist:

1. Look up one operator: Find lorry or bus operators on GOV.UK.
2. Download the full register: Traffic Commissioners: goods and public service vehicle operator licence records on data.gov.uk, published by DVSA under the Open Government Licence.

The dataset page says the files are updated monthly, on the 7th. There is one CSV per traffic area:

• East of England
• North East of England
• North West of England
• London and the South East of England
• Scotland
• Wales
• West Midlands
• West of England

Northern Ireland is not in this register. Open a file and you will see columns along these lines: GeographicRegion, LicenceNumber, LicenceType, OperatorName, OperatorType, CorrespondenceAddress, OCAddress, TransportManager, NumberOfVehiclesAuthorised, NumberOfTrailersAuthorised, VehiclesSpecified, TrailersSpecified, DirectorOrPartner, LicenceStatus, ContinuationDate, CompanyRegNumber.

Two things make the raw files awkward as a lead list. First, a single licence is often repeated: one row per operating centre, or per director. Second, sole traders and some partnerships appear with a person’s name and address. That is personal data under UK GDPR. If you use the raw files for marketing, you need a lawful basis and you must follow PECR for electronic marketing. When in doubt, keep to limited companies.

Free DIY: build a fleet-size lead list

For a regional list of the largest company fleets, a straightforward approach is:

1. Download the CSV for the traffic areas you care about (or all eight, for Great Britain).
2. Keep only OperatorType values that are limited companies, and drop sole traders.
3. De-duplicate by LicenceNumber, keeping the fleet-size figures once and collecting the operating-centre postcodes.
4. Sort by NumberOfVehiclesAuthorised, largest first.
5. Optionally look up CompanyRegNumber on Companies House.

A compact Python sketch:

import pandas as pd

df = pd.read_csv("OLBSLicenceReport_Wales.csv")
# Status values look like lsts_valid, lsts_curtailed, lsts_suspended
df = df[df["OperatorType"].str.contains("Limited Company", case=False, na=False)]

def first(s):
    return s.dropna().iloc[0] if len(s.dropna()) else None

licences = (
    df.groupby("LicenceNumber")
      .agg(
          operatorName=("OperatorName", first),
          licenceType=("LicenceType", first),
          licenceStatus=("LicenceStatus", first),
          vehiclesAuthorised=("NumberOfVehiclesAuthorised", "max"),
          trailersAuthorised=("NumberOfTrailersAuthorised", "max"),
          companyNumber=("CompanyRegNumber", first),
          postcodes=("OCAddress", lambda s: "; ".join(sorted(set(s.dropna().astype(str))))),
      )
      .reset_index()
      .sort_values("vehiclesAuthorised", ascending=False)
)
licences.head(200).to_csv("wales-largest-fleets.csv", index=False)

Standard National and Standard International licences are typically hire-and-reward hauliers. Restricted licences are firms carrying their own goods. Both can be useful, depending on what you sell. ContinuationDate is the next continuation (renewal) date, not the date the licence started. The files do not include trading names or a “licence granted on” field.

To find new operators you have to keep last month’s files and diff on LicenceNumber. Newly licensed hauliers are often actively buying vehicles and services, so that monthly diff is the highest-intent slice of the register. The same comparison can flag fleet-size increases, status changes (valid / curtailed / suspended) and new operating centres.

The shortcut: one row per licence, sorted by fleet, with monthly changes

If you do not want to de-duplicate eight files, strip personal rows, parse postcodes and keep monthly snapshots, UK HGV & PSV Operator Licences does that on Apify Store. It reads the same official data.gov.uk files. Sole traders and partnerships of individuals are excluded by default; director, partner and transport-manager names are never output. Pricing is $3 per 1,000 results, plus a $0.00005 start charge, with an optional maximum cost per run.

Largest goods fleets in Wales and the West Midlands, 50 vehicles or more:

{
  "trafficAreas": ["Wales", "West Midlands"],
  "licenceCategories": ["Goods"],
  "minVehicles": 50,
  "maxResults": 200
}

Monthly new-licence feed for Birmingham-area postcodes (schedule this after the 7th of the month):

{
  "mode": "newOnly",
  "trafficAreas": ["West Midlands"],
  "postcodePrefixes": ["B"]
}

Postcode prefixes are strict: B matches Birmingham but not BS or BD. You can also filter by licence type, status and operator name, or ask for all changes (added, removed, or changed fleet size, status or centres).

A typical company-fleet row:

{
  "operatorName": "OWENS (ROAD SERVICES) LTD",
  "licenceNumber": "OG0079437",
  "licenceCategory": "Goods",
  "licenceType": "Standard National",
  "licenceStatus": "Valid",
  "operatorType": "Limited Company",
  "isIndividual": false,
  "trafficArea": "Wales",
  "operatingCentres": ["DAFEN DAFEN INDUSTRIAL ESTATE LLANELLI, SA14 8QE"],
  "operatingCentrePostcodes": ["SA12 7DJ", "SA14 8YP", "LL13 9XN", "NP19 4PU", "CF31 3XB"],
  "operatingCentreCount": 10,
  "correspondencePostcode": "SA14 8QE",
  "vehiclesAuthorised": 345,
  "trailersAuthorised": 569,
  "vehiclesSpecified": 249,
  "hasTransportManager": true,
  "continuationDate": "2027-11-30",
  "companyNumber": "01301976",
  "changeType": null,
  "firstSeen": "2026-11-07",
  "snapshotDate": "2026-11-07"
}

In change modes, changedFields shows differences such as { "vehiclesAuthorised": { "from": 6, "to": 10 } }. Optional Companies House enrichment, with your own free API key, adds status, SIC codes, incorporation date and registered postcode. Results are sorted by fleet size, largest first. About 69,000 current licences are in the Great Britain register once de-duplicated.

firstSeen is the first file date the Actor saw the licence (“on or before” for licences already present in the baseline). The first run in a change mode only saves that baseline; real “new this month” rows appear after the next DVSA publication.

Which route should you pick?

• Check one carrier before you subcontract: use Find lorry or bus operators.
• A one-off regional list, and you will handle de-duplication and GDPR yourself: download the official CSVs.
• A reusable lead file, sorted by fleet size, with new-licence alerts after each monthly update: use the Actor.

Keep marketing lawful: company fleets and correspondence addresses are one thing, sole-trader names are another. The register is a licensing record, not a consent list.

Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Source: Traffic Commissioners / Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency, “Traffic Commissioners: goods and public service vehicle operator licence records” (data.gov.uk).