Transient thermoelastic interactions between materials and the moving heat sources, i.e. Laser additive manufacturing, Laser-assisted thermotherapy, high speed sliding and rolling contacts, are becoming increasingly important. In this work, a unified fractional thermoelastic theory is developed, and applied to study transient responses caused by a moving heat source. Theoretically, new insights on fractional thermoelasticity are provided by introducing new definitions of fractional derivative, i.e. Caputo-Fabrizio, Atangana–Baleanu and Tempered-Caputo type. Numerically, a semi-infinite medium subjected to a source of heat moving with constant velocity is considered within the present model under two different sets of boundary conditions: stress free and temperature given for the first, displacement fixed and thermally adiabatic for the second. Analytical solutions to all responses are firstly formulated in Laplace domain, and then transformed into time domain through numerical method. The numerical results show that Caputo-Fabrizio and Atangana–Baleanu type models predict smaller transient responses than Caputo type theory, while Tempered-Caputo model may give larger results by increasing the tempered parameter. Meanwhile, the effect of fractional order, tempered parameter of Tempered-Caputo model, and the velocity of heat source on all responses is discussed in detail. The time history of responses shows that: for long-term process, the exponential function of TC definition will make sense, and the temperature from TC model is greatly different from that of C model. This work may provide comprehensive understanding for thermoelastic interactions due to moving heat source, and open up possibly wide applications of such new fractional derivatives.