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During the past four years, the freight market has gone on a journey like that of a sky-piercing rollercoaster that won’t come to a complete stop.  As the COVID pandemic endured from 2020 to 2022, the freight industry ratcheted up the lift hill, spurred by incredible demand from Americans who increasingly relied on e-commerce for both everyday needs and luxury goods. In trucking, thousands of new carriers entered the market to haul loads. Tender rejection rates skyrocketed, and the spot freight market flourished.  As 2022 went on, and everyday life went back to something like normal, demand dried up, shippers had fewer orders to fulfill, and many of those new carriers became surplus capacity. Along with increased fuel costs and lackluster conditions in the economy at large, the freight market plunged downward. The resulting freight recession continues into the middle of 2024.  However, the thing about recessions is that they are inherently cyclical and don’t last forever. While the recession has touched every company in freight, it doesn’t have to handicap the way an organization employs technology.   In fact, when the market recovers – which could be as soon the third quarter of this year – companies who have invested in solutions that make the day-to-day business of freight easier will prosper faster than those who have sat by during the downturn.  But what should a company in freight look for when evaluating a tech partner? Let’s find out.  Solutions that incorporate real-time data  We all know the saying, “time is money.” But when transporting freight or financing or brokering loads, that statement rings especially true. Reliable and effective tech partners in today’s transportation climate provide mountains of real-time data to everyone who needs to know.  For example, drivers need to be apprised of current road conditions, weather warnings, and any possible detours on their routes. Additionally, those hauling freight on the road need to know the status of their drop-off point. If information is lacking or out of date, it can significantly affect on-time deliveries and jeopardize carrier and owner-operator reputations with shippers and brokers.  Carriers need to know about the status of their trucks, trailers, and other assets, especially as cargo theft rises. Even if everything is safe and accounted for, carriers still have to make sure their drivers are maintaining satisfactory safety standards behind the wheel and complying with Hours of Service rules. Real-time data helps carriers make sure nothing gets through the cracks.  On the broker side, real-time knowledge about loads and documents ensures optimal communication with partners and prompt payments.   Innovation and utilizing the latest tech  Software solutions in transportation are constantly changing and evolving. Meanwhile, the freight industry isn’t always known for being an early adopter to the newest tech.  As a company in freight, committing to the newest tech solutions can help deliver cost savings, minimize time spent on manual processes, and provide important insights that improve business outcomes. They can also help you gain an advantage over fellow industry players that aren’t as forward-thinking.  But just investing in tech isn’t the be-all and end-all for carriers, brokers, and even factors. A tech partner’s software can be a great fit for a freight business one year but be frustratingly out of date the next. In a freight market that doesn’t have a definitive or even likely turnaround date, a partner that is constantly developing and incorporating new ideas into its solutions is a must.  Customization  Suppose a drayage-focused carrier is constantly transporting loads in and out of port yards. It needs a solution that’s going to account for the unique circumstances related to that kind of freight. For example, a telematics platform that’s designed for traditional over-the-road trucking may unnecessarily alert a carrier at specific locations or speeds.  With a more customizable solution, that same carrier can set its notifications and exceptions in the way that makes the most sense for its usual type of freight. A configurable platform can potentially set up geofences for specific locations and take advantage of specially designed reports and modules.  Likewise, for brokers and 3PLs, not all loads, carriers, and shippers are created equal. The documents needed to resolve payments and billing may also be structured differently and require varied data. Furthermore, customizations can help integrate data from TMS systems.   Products that address various business challenges  Most businesses – and especially those in transportation – don’t have one solitary pain point or challenge that needs to be addressed; they have a handful or more. The most worthwhile tech partners will not only offer solutions that address those myriad sources of concern, but they’ll also have solutions available for various roles, responsibilities, and personas throughout the industry. In turn, that tech organization will have a greater grasp of everything going on in freight than if it just made products for a very specific use case or role.  Additionally, an organization who buys into tech from a well-rounded vendor won’t have to rely on several disparate solutions in its tech stack. That helps both save money and means employees using the solutions don’t have to constantly switch between platforms.  Customer service  Every B2B organization wants to close as many deals as it can and acquire all the new customers possible. But not every tech provider in logistics and freight shows the same commitment to its partners once the products are being used.   A partner who will deliver the best results for a company in freight pays special attention to making sure that the necessary tech solutions are implemented correctly and in a way that works the best for the business. No 3PL, carrier, shipper, or factor operates in the exact same way as its counterparts, and tech implementation takes account of that fact when done right.  Additionally, a tech provider that cares about its partners’ success will want to help if there are any issues with operating the solutions or employing them to maximum benefit.  A history in the industry  In both technology and freight, companies come and go – but they can also quickly turn from non-existent to household names or industry giants in the span of a few short years. But while highly funded startup operations may make the biggest splashes, it’s worth reflecting on if a tech partner truly knows the ins and outs of the freight world.  For instance, a transportation tech provider that has been around for multiple decades has seen at least a few recession cycles and has navigated several eras of digital transformation. That level of change during a company’s history indicates that it both knows how to adapt and has an extensive history of creating useful solutions for the market.  Partner with Transflo to ride out the rollercoaster  Not all tech partners or solutions are created equal. Choosing the right partner and making the decision to invest in customer-focused solutions before the market has fully rebounded can help your business flourish once business conditions are more positive.  By partnering with Transflo, your company can take advantage of all the attributes and benefits included in this guide. No matter if you’re looking for fleet management help, an app for drivers, workflow automation, or even fuel discounts, Transflo is a trusted industry leader you can count on. 

About Stevens Trucking  Stevens Trucking is a family-owned, Oklahoma-based carrier that has operated since 1979. It runs approximately 350 trucks and has 1,600 trailers. Started by President & CEO Kenney Stevens at the age of 18 with just one truck, the company specializes in oilfield delivery and the dry freight sector. It uses a 99% drop-and-hook model, which keeps freight moving and drivers on the road. The company has been able to grow immensely during its 45-year history by focusing on strong values and putting employees and customers first.  The challenge  Stevens Trucking’s drop-and-hook approach to most loads means that drivers can get a lot of miles driven each day and week and don’t have to worry about detention time. For Stevens’ drivers, about half of which are company drivers and half of which are owner-operators, unnecessary time managing and scanning documents for loads was eating into driving time. For the back office at Stevens, which had grown rapidly over a three-year period, billing speed was suffering due to issues with document scans being unclear and needing further clarification.  The solution  Jessi Maschino, Chief Revenue Officer and Office Manager for Stevens Trucking was looking for a document scanning solution that would minimize the roadblocks drivers and the office were facing with document quality and billing. She knew Stevens needed a solution that would be intuitive and easy for drivers and would keep the business side moving along as quickly as their trucks.  Transflo Mobile+ was just the tool that Stevens Trucking needed, thanks to its advanced, accurate document scanning capabilities and simplicity for drivers. Additionally, offline document capture in Mobile+ meant Stevens’ drivers and owner-operator partners could keep their workflow going without a cellular connection, as the documents would send whenever a driver’s device is back online.  “We had been using another mobile upload app, but the quality of scans was not good at all and actually created more work for our billing team,” Maschino said. “From the time we first saw Mobile+ in action, we were sure that it was going to make a world of difference.”  While document scanning was the biggest reason Maschino and her team at Stevens Trucking chose Transflo Mobile+, it wasn’t the only selling point. Mobile+ also integrated seamlessly with Stevens’ transportation management system (TMS) preference, as it does with every other major TMS platform.   The results  Transflo Mobile+ document scanning has provided immense benefits to the drivers and office team at Stevens Trucking. Maschino and her team have reported that the image quality for scanned documents like Bills of Lading has improved, which has dramatically reduced issues like delayed billing.  “Using Transflo Mobile+ has helped out our billing so much,” Maschino said. “We can bill out all of our invoices faster now.” Furthermore, Maschino pointed out that the Transflo team provided great support while the app was being implemented and used. Overall, the Stevens Trucking team gave Transflo Mobile+ and its document scanning their highest approval.  About Transflo  Transflo is the trusted industry leader in mobile, telematics, and business process automation solutions for the transportation industry in North America. Transflo’s customer-focused mobile and cloud-based technologies deliver real-time communications to fleets, brokers, factors, shippers, and commercial vehicle drivers, and digitize 800 million shipping documents a year, representing approximately $115 billion in freight bills and 3.2 million downloads of the Mobile+ app.  

The freight market has had to deal with a degree of whiplash over the last few years. The high-demand COVID era of 2020-21 saw thousands of new carriers and third-party logistics firms enter the market, eager to provide additional capacity and take advantage of higher rates.  Starting in 2022, that demand dried up precipitously, sending freight rates and tender rejections plummeting. This freight recession continues today and was one of the topics discussed at the Transportation Intermediaries Association’s 2024 Capital Ideas Conference, held April 10-13 in Phoenix, Arizona. The market slowdown has caused thousands of freight brokers and carriers to drop out of the market.  “This market right-sizing is painful. Regardless of whether it makes sense to get rid of some of the excess capacity in the marketplace, these closures obviously hurt people,” said TIA President Anne Reinke.  Fraud and transparency were two other significant topics addressed at the conference. During the past year, the association stood up a fraud task force and launched a quarterly fraud report to better educate member brokers/3PLs and encourage them to take action to fight double brokering and theft. Reinke estimated in January that fraud costs the industry up to $700 million in freight payments each year.  On the transparency front, TIA cited a statistic that 92% percent of carriers are unrated by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. Nine of 10 carriers across the country operating with no safety rating by the federal government is an untenable situation for brokers and 3PLs who rely on working with trustworthy carriers. The FMCSA has shown a willingness to change the status quo, but no industry consensus on how the ratings should be changed has yet emerged.  However, one especially compelling session at TIA Capital Ideas discussed the state of cross-border operations between the United States and Mexico. In an informal poll of attendees at the “Effective & Successful Cross-Border Operations” session held on Friday, April 12, half of brokers/3PLs said they currently operate in Mexico, while a number of those who don’t operate in Mexico indicate they want to in the coming years.  While that’s not exactly a scientific survey, it does signal that operating in Mexico is a growing subsector for the industry and that operating south of the border could be an option for many 3PLs going forward. Let’s look at three things to keep in mind when thinking about cross-border operations in Mexico.  1. Manufacturing is big in Mexico, and it’s only going to get bigger. Mexico’s status as a developing economy has made it a natural target for manufacturing over the past few decades, but recent market forces have accelerated that existing trend.  Trade measures taken against China in recent years have made Mexico more attractive to ship from for manufacturers due to lower tariffs and closer proximity to developed markets like the U.S. and Canada. According to the Mexican government, the country received a record $36 billion in direct foreign investment in 2023, much of which is attributable to companies nearshoring operations away from Asia. Additionally, Mexico was the U.S.’ top trading partner in January.  The trend is poised to continue for at least the next several years. 3PLs have the potential to do major business in Mexico, and building relationships with shippers and carriers early in the boom can give brokerages a huge leg up on the competition.  2. Risks are higher than the U.S., though. Doing business in Mexico isn’t quite as simple as putting up a new office across town. To say nothing of the bureaucratic aspects of starting a business in a different country, there are important differences involved with transporting freight in Mexico.  Mexican carriers are not required to carry the same amount of insurance as their American (or Canadian) counterparts, and any coverage they do have is likely to be based on the tonnage of the load and not value. This can lead to a situation where a high-value load from a shipper has minimal coverage.  Cargo theft is also an issue that is, unfortunately, on the rise in Mexico. In 2023, theft grew by 3.9% over the previous year, according to the country’s public security ministry. Shippers and brokers should also not expect the same visibility and service as the U.S. Oftentimes, stakeholders will receive updates on WhatsApp or only at truck stops near the U.S.-Mexico border. Additionally, there is no electronic logging device (ELD) mandate in Mexico. 3. Steps to mitigate risk are available – and imperative to brokering in Mexico. Traditional insurers have typically been hesitant to assure cross-border loads, which has often meant a 3PL takes its chances with minimal insurance or asks a shipper to sign a waiver of liability. However, given the freight and manufacturing boom in Mexico, insurers are becoming more receptive to insurance agreements. Brokers may be able to secure additional insurance on behalf of the shipper to cover the full value of the freight.  And while ELDs and other telematics are not required in Mexico, carriers that use them help guarantee a level of visibility and safety. One example mentioned during the session involved Nestlé, who had seven shipments hijacked in one week in Mexico. However, because the food and drink giant used tracking on those shipments, they were recovered.  These factors make it imperative for 3PLs to take proactive risk management steps that discern the best carriers to work with and employ specialized customer agreements with shippers.  Whether you work in one country or three, Transflo can help 3PLs work more efficiently.  Operating outside of the United States as an American broker or 3PL isn’t easy. Language barriers, customs issues, foreign laws, and the potential issues discussed in this blog may take up significant time and effort. But that doesn’t mean your partner carriers and shippers stateside will have time to wait.   For your more bread-and-butter freight, there’s Workflow AI from Transflo, which can reduce up to 97% of manual work and automate countless tasks. Then, your team will have more time to work with unique cases – or begin or continue operations in Mexico.  

Telematics was once a controversial word for carriers and was synonymous with devices and software that could break the bank and only offer a limited use case. After all, telematics’ primary purpose was to electronically log driver hours – something that had been done manually by millions of drivers and thousands of fleets since 1937, as federally mandated by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA).   After years of court battles and revised regulations, the FMCSA’s Electronic Logging Device (ELD) mandate took effect in 2017. Today, ELDs and other telematics devices are not only capable of compliance with federal Hours of Service (HOS) requirements, they’re also supercharged tech tools that enable carriers to have non-stop insights about trucks, drivers, and shipments.  In this blog, we’ll look at several important areas of telematics and how they can help a carrier with profitability.  Hours of Service  Logging hours of service is the most traditional use of telematics in road transportation and the reason why the ELD mandate was implemented. This subset of telematics ensures that drivers and carriers comply with federal HOS regulations, including a 14-hour shift limit, a 70-hour driving time limit over eight days, a 34-hour off-duty weekly clock reset, and more. But how does following these rules benefit carriers?  For starters, hours of service regulations lessen driver fatigue, decreasing the risk of at-fault collisions. Settlements for accidents can range from five- and six-figure amounts to millions of dollars depending on the circumstances.   But even companies who play a little bit loose with hours of service can pay the price in the medium and long term. Offenders of HOS rules can be placed out of service, have fines levied on their companies, and/or have their safety rating downgraded by the FMSCA. In turn, those demerits can increase the insurance premiums required to be on the road and make brokers less likely to deal with the potential risk of working with a carrier.  When a carrier is diligent about logging hours of service and adhering to FMCSA regulations with an approved, reliable, and intuitive ELD, HOS-related hits to the bottom line are rare if not completely prevented.  Real-time navigation and tracking  “Time is money” is a phrase that resonates in transportation and logistics. If a carrier doesn’t know where a truck is or the route a driver is taking, it is effectively in the dark about the status of the shipment and if it will arrive at its destination on time.  A full-scale telematics solution, including navigation, offers both real-time visibility into driver location and optimizes directions in a way that takes driver hours and road conditions into account. This helps ensure on-time arrival, minimizes costly detention time in unloading a shipment, and lessens unnecessary and money-draining fuel consumption.  Additionally, navigation and asset or trailer tracking help keep shipments secure. If a driver is in a place they’re not supposed to be, a dispatcher can be notified immediately, and further escalation steps can be taken if a lost shipment is suspected. On a similar note, a carrier can customize geofencing capabilities in a telematics solution, which is important if trucks are continually entering and exiting an area like a port where speed limits must be followed to ensure safe delivery or pickup.  Video telematics  Dash cams have been around in transportation for longer than the ELD mandate, but the combination of dash cams, artificial intelligence, and telematics is a newer development that can help carriers coach drivers about unsafe habits.  For example, a state-of-the-art telematics platform can provide visibility and notifications to about the following driving events (and much more):  Speeding  Hard braking  Extreme acceleration  But when combined with a dashcam, fleet managers can refer to the times those events occurred and determine if the driver needs to be coached about unsafe behavior. If the dashcam has AI functionality and both inside and outside-facing lenses, additional driver behaviors can be pinpointed, such as:  Veering into another lane  Using a phone while driving  Headtilts  A driver taking his or her eyes off the road  Other actions associated with driver fatigue or inattention  With data and camera footage in tow, a telematics and AI solution can help assign a driver with a safety score and further coach them on things to improve. This scoring can help lower insurance premiums, as the carrier can demonstrate that its drivers quantitatively and qualitatively adhere to safe driving standards.   Additionally, if a driver is implicated in an accident of any severity, dashcam footage can confirm that a non-commercial vehicle was at fault and exonerate the carrier from any liability.  Driver exoneration  Unfortunately, accidents and collisions happen. And with the amount of money that gets awarded in some nuclear verdicts involving a Class 8 truck, there’s an incentive for some in the legal profession to take advantage of terrible situations and seek millions from a judgment.  These scenarios assume the driver is at fault – but video telematics can prove otherwise – making driver exoneration an incredibly valuable aspect of telematics.  Think of the harrowing dash cam footage released in May 2024 of a driver in Louisville who ended up hanging from the Clark Memorial Bridge in her cab. Now imagine that it was one of your fleet’s trucks involved in that wreck and you didn’t have a dash cam. It’s impossible to know the outcome in that case. But in real life, that dash cam footage was incontrovertible proof that an irresponsible driver in a smaller car caused the horrifying collision.  Fleet maintenance  A telematics device like an ELD typically plugs into a vehicle’s OBD-II port, with OBD standing for On-Board Diagnostics. A modern telematics system aptly lives up to that port name by transmitting thousands of data points about the vehicle’s well-being to a fleet management platform. This includes the condition of many important parts of the truck, such as the:  Engine  Transmission  Tires  Battery  Brakes  Telematics can also monitor load-specific criteria like shipment temperature for refrigerated trucks.  A carrier can help its bottom line by setting myriad reminders in its telematics system, which will let fleet managers know when part of a vehicle needs attention. By not ignoring these warnings, a carrier can save money in the long run and prevent load-halting breakdowns on the road.   Like hours of service, vehicle condition plays a crucial role in how a carrier is viewed by the FMCSA for road safety purposes. Therefore, if a carrier isn’t cognizant of issues with the truck, it runs the real risk of a downgraded safety rating or an issue that could cause an at-fault accident.  Telematics that matter to your fleet  It pays for carriers to embrace technology. Investment in a telematics solution means your fleet can gain visibility into key aspects of compliance, obtain full visibility of issues with shipments and trucks, and coach your drivers on important driving behaviors for continued safety on the road.   Telematics solutions from Transflo, powered by ATI, offer full integration with the best-in-class Geotab fleet management platform and the long-standing, easy-to-use Transflo Mobile+ driver app. Furthermore, our telematics experts are eager to work with you to on customized solutions that work specifically for your fleet and aren’t one-sized-fits-all applications.  For more information on telematics, ELDs, and asset tracking, contact us today and set up a demo. 

“As we continue into the spring season, we’re filled with excitement about the future of Transflo. Our roadmap is packed with innovation that revolutionizes how transportation interacts with technology. With each new day, our solutions are getting more intelligent and intuitive.  Looking ahead, we see a promising horizon where our solutions will significantly shape the future of transportation. Spring brings new beginnings and growth, and we’re ready for remarkable progress and success. We want to thank you for reading our latest edition of Transflo’s quarterly newsletter, and please let us know if you have any ideas for future content! ” – Bill Vitti, Transflo President and Chief Revenue Officer