* California - Startup Trucker Path just raised $20 million to bring a low-tech industry into the mobile era
... As recently as the late 1990s, “the truck stops had a white board and they’d just write up all the loads that might be available in the area” ... That changed when early innovators created what are called loadboards—relatively simple websites that list available cargo... But Trucker Path aims to go further, digitizing not just the search for a load, but also administrative processes that are still stuck in the past. After they locate an appealing load (often after scouring several loadboards), today’s independent truckers must negotiate a rate by phone, and exchange extensive documentation via email and fax (many truckers still carry fax machines in their cabs for the purpose)... Finding, negotiating, and finalizing a deal can take hours, a direct hit to truckers who are paid for each mile they drive. Truckers can choose to outsource parts of the process to a sprawling support industry, including brokers that work with manufacturers and other shippers, dispatchers who help truckers find loads, and services that manage the extensive paperwork. But each of these takes a cut of truckers’ already middling pay— Charles Myers, an industry veteran and Trucker Path’s vice president, estimates that the cost for a trucker to negotiate a single load is still about $100... That inefficiency is a drag on an industry that faces both swelling demand and a driver shortage. Trucker Path’s long-term goal is to integrate bidding, tracking, documentation, and payment services. Among the old guard under fire are so-called freight factorers, who, much like payday lenders, provide truckers with advances on load payments that can take 30 to 90 days to arrive. The Truckloads beta includes factoring that is, at least temporarily, free... Trucker Path projects that the Truckloads marketplace will go live this August. Trucker Path’s leadership is still weighing whether to charge a monthly fee to truckers, but the core of its revenue model is transaction-fee based...
San Jose, CAL, USA - Fortune, by David Z. Morris - JULY 9, 2015Labels: trucking industry news USA
![[Valid Atom 1.0]](valid-atom.png "Validate my Atom 1.0 feed")
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home