Category: Company
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The Ugly Truth About Internet Load Boards
Internet load boards have changed our industry in many ways. What concerns me most is their influence on freight prices. We are seeing that now. It starts when a shipper offers the same load to more than one broker. The brokers then go post the loads on the internet. For many, that is the only…
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Crunch Time 2.0
The lack of equipment to meet the demand for flatbeds is at a point I have not seen in 35 years. Some of our customers would define it as “critical.” We are looking at freight paying well over $4.00/ mile on the spot market. Pricing for vans has gone from a sharp spike to a…
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Where did all the trucks go?
Although more pronounced during the recent streak of bad weather across the country, truck availability started falling short of demand in the Spring of 2020. As the country recovers from COVID, even a modest economic improvement spells out an increasing capacity crunch and higher freight costs. First, it is important to remember how fragmented the…
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The Struggles of Automation in Freight Pricing and Tendering
In practice, a customer sends a Request for Proposal (RFP) to their carriers. Historically, the pricing is meant to hold true for one year. Once returned, each carrier’s pricing is loaded into the customer’s Transportation Management System (TMS) which automates the load tendering. Typically, the least expensive carrier is the first to receive a tender.…