As Rick Mihelic of the North American Council for Freight Efficiency recently wrote in an article for the Commercial Carrier Journal, the only constant in the trucking industry is change. Rising consumer demand for home deliveries, emerging technologies, a fragmented capacity market and VC-funded start-ups are all shaping the evolution of trucking and logistics. Today, there’s a greater focus on optimizing your operations for efficiency and leveraging the power of technology to build and strengthen relationships with shippers and carriers.
Here, we discuss three of the most significant areas of evolution occurring in the trucking industry: real-time digital visibility, digital freight matching and the emergence of the tech-savvy trucker.
The Rise of Real-Time Digital Freight Visibility
Gartner’s Market Guide for Real-Time Transportation Visibility Platforms, published earlier this year, found that within the next three years, 50 percent of global leading enterprises will have invested in real-time transportation visibility technology. It’s no secret why real-time visibility is such a high priority. Real-time visibility benefits the entire supply chain. Within logistics, digital real-time visibility has become a top service offering, as shippers seek to optimize their supply chain activities for efficiency and identify strategic partners who can help them improve profit margins.
As a freight broker or 3PL, your success today is predicated on your ability to provide continuous, real-time digital visibility to your shippers. Powerful solutions like Trucker Tools’ real-time visibility platform provide digital location updates every five minutes to ensure that you and your shippers can operate as efficiently as possible. Check-call reduction, greater operational efficiency and more time for relationship-building are some of the benefits that real-time visibility provides.
Digital Freight Matching: A Smart Alternative to Load Boards
In recent years, the trucking industry has become more and more fragmented, as more truckers have chosen to become owner operators or work for smaller trucking companies instead of large fleets. In fact, 97 percent of carriers in the United States operate with 20 or fewer trucks. Of those, 90 percent operate with six or fewer trucks. This fragmentation has made it more difficult for brokers and 3PLs like you to find and secure capacity, and to maintain ongoing relationships and business with high-performing carriers.
Digital freight matching represents one of the most significant and promising developments in the trucking industry. Digital freight matching software automatically matches broker/3PL loads with available truck capacity, simplifying the process for covering a load. Trucker Tools’ digital freight matching instantly matches your open loads with trucks from your list of preferred carriers, with the best matches at the top of the list. Digital freight matching reduces the time and effort required to cover a load. With digital freight matching, you can cover a load quickly without ever posting to a load board, picking up the phone or sending an email. Greater efficiency helps lower your cost per load and increase profit margins. Digital freight matching also helps you increase carrier utilization and strengthen strategic relationships with key carriers.
Say Hello to the Tech-Savvy Trucker
Contrary to popular belief, truckers and trucking companies aren’t afraid of or unwilling to adopt technology. Today’s trucker is tech-savvy and values efficiency more than you likely realize. When carriers do refuse to use a technology, it’s usually for good reason. Today’s carriers expect technology to work as it should and for it to provide some value to them. If, for example, you ask an owner operator or trucking company to use a single function load tracking app that never works correctly, inundate them with phone calls and/or don’t appear to value their time, your success rate is not going to be high.
Downloads of Trucker Tools’ free driver app recently surpassed the 1 million mark. Our free driver app is popular with owner operators and trucking companies, in particular, because it does more than just track loads for you and other brokers. The Trucker Tools driver app is designed to provide real value to truckers, in addition to automating communications with you and other brokers. The driver app provides truckers with real-time information on fuel prices, weigh scales, parking, truck stops, rest areas, available loads, optimal routes, nearby stores, hospitals, repair shops and more. The 17+ tools and features included, as well as the time and money savings that it can provide, make the Trucker Tools driver app a winning proposition for carriers.
Are you looking for an easy way to communicate with your preferred carriers? Read Introducing Trucker Tools’ New Broker Advantage to learn more about our innovative new white-label feature for brokers.
Schedule a free demo of Trucker Tools’ real-time visibility, digital freight matching and free driver app.
