Mandated by the Commercial Motor Vehicle Safety Act 1986 (CMVSA) and revised in accordance with various other federal laws subsequent to CMVSA, CDLIS helps document the issuance of a Commercial driver's license (CDL) and the withdrawal of a commercial driver by the State Driver Licensing Agencies (SDLAs) of the CDLIS jurisdictions (the 50 U.S. States and the District of Columbia).
CDLIS consists of a Central Site (located in Ashburn, Virginia) and nodes for all 51 SDLAs, all interconnected on AAMVAnet (AAMVA's proprietary, secure network).
The Central Site stores identification data about each commercial driver registered in the jurisdictions, such as: name; date of birth; last five digits of the Social Security Number; State driver license number and Also Known As (AKA) information (i.e., former/previous names, DOBs, and/or State driver license numbers).
The information at the Central Site constitutes a driver's unique CDLIS Master Pointer Record (MPR).
If one or more matches are returned, then the CDLIS Central Site "points" the SOI to the State Of Record (SOR), where more detailed information about the driver's commercial driving history is found.