How are you tracking our loads in real time? What measures are you taking to ensure our product gets from Point A to B safely and on time? Where is my load right now? These are just a few questions we’ve recently been receiving from shippers as the transportation industry continues to rely on real-time data more than we’ve ever seen before. Shippers across the country now value transparency as one of the most important attributes in their top carrier partners, and so do we within our own carrier network. In order to be on the forefront of this industry trend, Spot now requires all of its carrier partners to provide some form of automated location updates to us while servicing our freight, which include the following options:
PROJECT44 ELD INTEGRATION
Project44 provides an Advanced Visibility PlatformTM utilizing a tractor’s ELD device. Through this connection, Spot is able to garner up-to-date tracking throughout a driver’s trip via the Project44 integration within our proprietary transportation management system, RED TMS. Therefore, when a shipper requests an arrival update, our team is able to log-in to our TMS and quickly locate the driver in real time. Participation in this program is free to our carrier partners and ultimately allows for dramatically reduced check calls and driver detention times.
RED DRIVER MOBILE APP & WEBSITE
If a carrier partner is ELD exempt, drivers are then required to download RED DRIVER, Spot’s mobile app for drivers available for both iOS & Android devices. From here, drivers can log the status of their stops (i.e. – start, en route, at stop, and completed) with GPS enabled and also verify shipment details upon loading/unloading. If a driver does not have a smartphone, a web version of the app is available, coupled with a texting feature.
24/7 LOGISTICS TEAM
As an additional means of tracking, Spot has a 24/7 visibility team. Shift leads are assigned to each account and act as a point of contact for all after hours and weekend needs. In addition, they handle all carrier capacity needs (expedites, breakdowns, etc.), hours of service monitoring, and OTD of all active loads. This way our shippers and carriers always have someone available to communicate with on status updates or support after normal business hours.
WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?
Going forward, achieving 100% real-time visibility across our entire network is one of the most important goals that we are working towards as we start to close out 2019 and look to 2020. We have also recently formed a Carrier Integrations team whose sole responsibility will be to work side-by-side with our carrier partners to find the best fit tracking solution for their business. Taking these steps to guarantee visibility and transparency throughout a shipment will allow for us all to communicate more effectively and for our carrier partners to focus on what they do best: transporting goods safely and on time.