DC Velocity - June 2015

BY MARK B. SOLOMON, EXECUTIVE EDITOR – NEWS

MOTOR FREIGHT

SINCE THEY WERE LAUNCHED SOME 35 YEARS AGO, load boards that match freight with trucks on the truckload spot market have led mostly low-tech lives. The original monitors, resembling the familiar flight arrival and departure boards at airports, were located only in truck stops. Loads were posted by hand before the eventual conversion to what today would be considered extremely primitive technology. Drivers had no visibility into load opportunities until they pulled off the road. Once a driver spotted an attractive load on the board, a call would be placed to the shipper or freight broker, and, barring any legal issues, off the driver would go.

As with all products and services impacted by the digi-
tal revolution, the load boards of 2015 have gone beyond
their creators’ wildest dreams. Today’s boards, laden with
eye-popping technology, allow users to view most of the
nation’s vast truckload network in real time. Drivers can
absorb all of the information about a load, and the party
posting it, from a single screen. Through their mobile
devices, brokers and carriers can post, book, and accept
loads from anywhere, even from the seat of a cab at a
remote location. Load boards’ interface with transpor-
tation management systems (TMS), though not new, is
more robust than ever, according to load board executives.
Load board providers have even built TMSs for small to
mid-sized users that want to go beyond the capabilities of
an Excel spreadsheet but can’t justify the cost of high-end
systems.

Load boarding’s two main vendors, Portland, Ore.-based DAT Solutions (formed in 1978 under the name Dial-A-Truck) and New Plymouth, Idaho-based Truckstop.com, hold a duopoly on the business for goods movement, though there are other load boards dedicated to sectors like waste haulage. As the two firms add functions in their battle for market share, it is apparent that the basic load matching function has become the baseline service. Truckstop charges a $35 monthly subscription fee for load matching, the same price since its founding in 1995. However, all other features are priced à la carte, so there would be additional charges if a broker sought to verify a carrier’s insurance status and safety record, have the load board provide route optimization services, engage Truckstop to manage the setup paperwork for the carrier—a process known as “onboarding”—or use the board to retrieve a broker’s credit score and payment history.