If truckers call their usual brokers and no one has a job, they may need to drive home empty or wait days for a new load. “They may get on the phone while their truck is being unloaded to start looking for their next job,” said Dan Lewis, Convoy’s chief executive. That’s because weather, unloading time and other factors make their exact availability unpredictable.
TRUCKING OFFICE DRIVERS
Truck drivers typically can’t schedule a run until their current job is complete. On the shippers’ end, they can put out requests and have them matched automatically instead of calling each trucker. Traditional brokers and logistics companies are also trying to modernize their operations, she added.Ĭonvoy’s phone app lets truck drivers set their parameters: where and when they want to drive, and the type and size of load they can carry. More than 40 companies just in North America have been founded in this business over the last seven years, including Uber Freight, Loadsmart and Transfix, attracting billions of dollars in investment, according to Ms. Improving efficiency means fewer empty trucks on the road, which would lower carbon emissions. The apps also promise a positive environmental impact. The efficiencies are not expected to cause any truckers to lose their jobs because there is a shortage of over 60,000 of them in the United States, according to the American Trucking Associations. Paul estimated that services like Convoy’s were expected to grow rapidly, from posting $210 million in broker fees in North America in 2017 to $6.7 billion in 2025. Paul said on-demand brokerage services like Convoy were one of “the hottest technologies in the trucking industry globally.” An app that can take the place of countless emails and phone calls and provide load and truck availability, rate negotiations, proof-of-delivery and payments is extremely valuable to trucker and shipping company alike.Īs part of an industry study, Ms.
TRUCKING OFFICE DRIVER
It takes an average of three days for his company to be paid after its driver has scanned in the paperwork for a completed job, rather than the industry average of two weeks, he said. Payment is also more efficient through the app, Mr. “Now we can use the app to look at jobs where we are and where we’re going and get all the information and pricing on the load,” he said. In 2018, it reached unicorn status as a privately held start-up valued at over $1 billion. With a one-stop app, the company hopes to make more money for truckers, reduce costs for shippers and take a cut for itself.Ĭonvoy, begun in Seattle four years ago, counts Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos as early investors and has grown to 700 people from 250 in the last year. One of the biggest, Convoy, has pushed to eliminate the paperwork and streamline the calls, emails and faxes that have been the unavoidable bane of truckers everywhere. Until recently, the internet forces that have disrupted taxi rides and food delivery weren’t quite ready to take on this challenge.Ī fast-growing class of app-based businesses aims to change that. Trucks move about 70 percent of freight by weight in the United States, but the industry is inefficient, with more than a quarter of trucks on the road riding empty. A dining room table that started out as lumber might have ridden on six trucks from the forest to someone’s home.
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