Charlie Myers, uShip.com freight general manager, forecasts a shift in load selection that’s much like when online load boards became the default venue for spot market freight. “It took a while for carriers to really grasp the concept,” Myers says of the prior shift. “Then it went viral, and the online boards took over the spot market freight space.”
If Myers is right, the online marketplace model – aided by growing mobile Internet capability and usage – is where load selection is heading. When operators view a load board today, nine times out of 10 “they’re never sure if that load is a good load or not,” so they’re checking broker credit scores and making phone calls, he says.
For such a load posting in a marketplace model, uShip’s new Pro side for commercial freight – currently in testing – is enabling more seamless connections between shippers, brokers and carriers. Pro is separate from the retail side of uShip’s website, where individuals typically post for live auction-style bidding.
Pro is inviting shippers and brokers to create private networks via uship.com/Pro. “We’ve got about 600 load posters in that space,” says Myers. Participating companies create a private network of carriers within the system.
Among those in the test is a “top-20 truckload broker,” Myers says. “They’ll put loads onto their private network, and we’re seeing a fair number of their carriers coming online and interacting with those loads. They can look at the load, and if they like it, they tender the load to themselves.” The load confirmation is triggered, and the truck is dispatched automatically.
The concept is in some ways similar to what Internet Truckstop is doing with its “branded broker” smartphone apps development program. The first in the series is the FTL BFF app for iPhone and Android, streamlining the connection between Fikes Truck Line’s brokerage wing, FTL Logistics, and its carrier partners. While the FTL app operates similar to an in-house broker load board, ITS is working with others toward a user experience that potentially could eliminate phone calls where appropriate.
A pilot program with another broker working with ITS on a branded app is testing more automated load selection where carriers “could select the load right from the app, and it could generate the appropriate notifications,” says Thayne Boren, ITS director of sales. “We also have a scanning function for signature capture within the branded broker application” – likewise a way to automate check-call statuses using cellular location data.
