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bility; private and dedicated equipment accounted for 46. 4 percent of
total truck tonnage in 2012, up from
around 40 percent prior to the 2007–
09 recession, according to the U.S.
Census Bureau. Rather, TranSync
is designed to help fleet manag-
ers make better-informed decisions
about their overall fleet mix and how
to optimize the resources at their
disposal during what many expect
to be a prolonged period of resource
shortages, Ryder said.
The TranSync tool “analyzes the
best combination of transportation
modes at the lowest total network
cost, in real time, load by load, every
day,” Ryder said in its June 23 announce-
ment. Up until now, fleet owners and
managers would rely on spreadsheets to
determine, as best they could, an opti-
mal real-time fleet mix.
“There is a misconception in the
industry that you can identify the lowest
total network cost based on optimizing lane rates,” John Diez, president
of Ryder’s Dedicated Transportation
Solutions unit, said at the time. The
TranSync tool enables Ryder to consider
other factors—such as available drivers,
fixed fleet costs, and backhauls—and
calculate the lowest network costs and
optimal resource allocation, Diez added.
In an interview in late July, Diez said
Ryder doesn’t expect TranSync users to
make daily fleet adjustments, although
the tool is capable of performing along
those lines. But it will be a marked
improvement for shippers using manual processes who may tinker with their
resource needs “once or twice a year,”
he said.
A YEAR IN THE PLANNING
The idea that led to TranSync’s creation took root in the first half of 2014
when Ryder, which has its hand in
virtually every part of the U.S. trucking
pie, found that its shipper customers
wanted to incorporate more common
carriage into their fleet planning but
lacked the technology needed to make
reliable shipment-allocation decisions.
It asked researchers at the University of
Tennessee’s Haslam College of Business
to build a preliminary mathematical
model and then conduct a survey of
shippers to determine if a need existed
and if such a resource-allocation tool
would be useful. The study, conducted
between July and September of last year,
returned 101 responses across multiple
verticals, with 63 percent representing
companies with $3 billion or more in
annual sales.
Of the total respondents, 74 percent
said their companies used a mix of
private/dedicated assets and common
carriers for their outbound shipments.
About 73 percent of the companies had
a “defined, specific process” for allo-
