Trucker Tools announced that ARL Logistics, a leading provider of transportation management and freight brokerage services, has implemented Trucker Tools Smart Capacity predictive load-matching and automated booking for truckload shipments. The deployment will provide its brokers and carriers with faster, more accurate and timely matching and booking of available trucks with available loads.
The implementation marks an expansion of Pittsburgh, PA-based ARL Logistics’ collaboration with Trucker Tools. The company previously integrated Trucker Tools app-based load-tracking solution, which provides automated, GPS time-stamped shipment in-transit updates as frequently as every 15 minutes. The freight-matching module and “Book It Now®” functionality also have been incorporated into ARL Logistics transportation management system (TMS) platform for its brokers and carrier partners.
The Trucker Tools software and services portfolio includes predictive digital freight-matching, automated load booking, app-based GPS-driven automated load tracking and digital document management, connecting brokers and truckers over a secure, private network. The company also deploys the industry’s most popular mobile driver app.
“We want to partner with technology companies that are the best at what they do,” said Jordan Reber, executive vice president, ARL Logistics, who noted his company was an early adopter of Trucker Tools. “We’ve had a great experience with Trucker Tools load-tracking, and as we considered the other applications within Smart Capacity, the opportunity to dramatically compress the time and cost to cover a load, and improve engagement with our carriers, it just made sense.” ARL Logistics has some 10,000 independent carriers in its truckload capacity network and manages some 200 loads a day for its customers.
Reber noted that for brokers to compete in today’s digital-driven marketplace, it’s imperative to continually “up your game” in terms of technology to manage the block and tackling of the business, and the tools with which a broker engages with truckers and shippers. “With Trucker Tools, we’re leveraging a platform that is already proven and widely adopted,” he notes, “We’re in this for the long game, and really see ourselves as a strategic development partner helping to improve and evolve the platform and products.”
He added as well that as capacity tightens, truckers are going to gravitate to brokers who save them time, know their preferences, and are easiest to do business with. Automated tools – such as Book It Now® and GPS-based automated load-tracking – support that goal.
“Truckers don’t want to be taking calls from yet another broker and negotiating with some inexperienced employee over 25 bucks, or getting asked 5 times a day where’s my shipment,” Reber commented, outlining an often-typical broker-trucker exchange. “If they can see the load immediately on an app on their phone, know it fits their profile, and accept it automatically, without talking to someone, that’s what they want,” says Reber. “If they can automate shipment updates through the app, even better.” The broker gains efficiencies and improves tracking compliance from a typical 30 percent to over 70 percent. The trucker, meanwhile, enjoys a better transactional experience and spends far less downtime looking for loads and reloads.
Reber cited as well the advantage gained from the widely adopted Trucker Tools Mobile Driver App, which has 17 of the most sought-after features and functions drivers want for managing their business while on the road. The app has been downloaded and activated by some 950,000 independent owner-operators and is actively used by over 140,000 small fleet operators.
“Increasingly freight brokers are realizing that with today’s agile, cloud-based digital brokerage technologies, a best of breed approach can provide rapid time-to-value and near-immediate productivity gains and cost savings,” said Prasad Gollapalli, founder and chief executive of Trucker Tools. “ARL Logistics is embracing this strategy wholeheartedly, and as a result, are delivering enduring, sustainable benefits for its shipper customers and carrier partners.”
Some 90 percent of truckload market carriers are independent owner-operators and small fleets of 10 trucks or less. The multi-functional, GPS-enabled multi-party mobile app is available for both Android- and Apple-powered smartphones and is provided free of charge to independent truckers and small fleets.
