In March, Louisville, Kentucky, hosted the 52nd Mid-America Trucking Show, an event drawing a dynamic spectrum of stakeholders ranging from trucking companies, technology providers and OEMs to parts manufacturers and industry experts. This annual gathering serves as both a showcase of emerging trends and a celebration of the trucking lifestyle.
FreightWaves seized the opportunity to dive into current innovations, conducting interviews with four FreightTech companies poised to revolutionize operations in the trucking industry.
TrueNorth Technologies
Owner-operator solutions provider TrueNorth Technologies has built a phone app, available on both iOS and Android systems, to enable independent drivers to run their businesses with the same efficiencies as enterprise trucking companies.
The company’s technology helps book loads with its hundreds of 3PL partners — including Newtrul, Ryder, C.H. Robinson and Loadsmart — and run back-office operations.
Jin Stedge, CEO of TrueNorth, said the company’s specialized rate features help carriers quickly understand the fixed and variable costs of a load before dedicating themselves to it. She also explained that TrueNorth’s in-house dispatching services help support owner-operators who might be too busy to watch load boards for the next hot load.
“Our dispatch service allows carriers to let someone else handle the entire load-booking process. Because our dispatchers use TrueNorth tools to book, we can offer our dispatch service for a fraction of the usual cost, just over 1% of gross revenue,” she told FreightWaves.
Understanding that problems can arise while using a phone app to book loads, the company offers high levels of customer service to avoid the pitfalls that often take new carriers out of the market.
“We offer a service targeted toward first-year authorities, where we hand-hold them through their New Entrant Safety Audit, help them with permits and walk them through their first insurance renewal,” said Stedge, who started building these systems after establishing her trucking company, TrueNorth Transportation, in 2020.
TrueNorth plans to release its new solutions soon, including a feature to help carriers share their availability in real time and offering integrations into ELD systems to streamline business management processes.
For now, the company is utilizing automation to its full potential.
“We send out personalized load recommendations to drivers. … We use [optical character recognition] to automatically process our load documents so our carriers don’t need to manually enter any information, and we plan to continue to use AI in any way that can give owner-ops an advantage over large fleets,” Stedge explained.
BulkLoads
Bulk commodities platform BulkLoads has created a marketplace for a very niche mode of transportation. Its app connects over 12,000 bulk freight trucking companies to the agricultural sector, along with a suite of services including a TMS, factoring services, permitting services and compliance tools.
Tyler Allison, BulkLoads’ marketing manager, explained to FreightWaves how its technology has learned the operations behind bulk shipping and helped keep this specialized trailer type moving for its customers.
“An example comes from RC Trucking in Kansas, who are users of our TMS. They previously dedicated about 33 hours a week to invoicing customers and handling paperwork. With our TMS, this time has been drastically reduced to just three hours a week, as the system
automates most of their tasks. This change is a testament to how our technology fosters not just cost savings, but also streamlined operations and an enhanced experience for drivers,” Allison said.
To avoid cybersecurity and fraud issues plaguing the industry, the company uses a third-party auditor to implement best practices and protocols for major compliance frameworks and is currently completing its Service Organization Control Type 2 framework to keep its user data safe and private from its third-party integrators. Its systems are also replicated off-site for disaster recovery purposes.
Since this particular type of shipping is nuanced, BulkLoads is actively invested in AI to meet its niche customer needs.
“Our dev team is continuously enhancing our tech with new features tailored to our customers’ needs. Our business model is client-focused, and our tech is built out on industry needs and feedback from our users,” said Allison.
To educate its drivers and shippers, the company also hosts The BulkLoads Podcast. You can check out its episodes from MATS here.
FreightValidate
Compliance platform FreightValidate helps mitigate fraud in the industry by ensuring regulatory compliance of the industry’s brokers and carriers. Both parties can search its database by Motor Carrier or Department of Transportation number and identify fraudulent parties in their network of partners.
“Our platform serves as a safety net, particularly when data received on applications falls through the cracks due to lapses in verification by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. By offering a comprehensive identity and compliance verification platform, we fill the gap left by incomplete or inaccurate data, mitigating fraud risks and ensuring regulatory compliance,” Dale Prax, founder, president and CEO of the company, told FreightWaves.
“We hope that the FMCSA adopts some of the practices we have in place to be part of the new-entrant audit. We believe that every broker, carrier and forwarder should be required to undergo the new-entrant audit, which includes substantial carrier and individual identity verification and compliance verification before the issuance of an MC number.”
Prax told FreightWaves that the company’s cybersecurity and protection of its user data is paramount. It currently also offers a secure platform where trucking companies can confidently engage in facial recognition verification for identity authentication and compliance checks.
Its focus is to bring evolving technologies to carriers of all sizes to prove they are the company they represent and avoid more fraud and theft in the transportation industry.
“Our latest development: hands-free carrier and broker identity and compliance validation check through our mobile app, Siri or Alexa,” Prax said. “With this technology, drivers, shippers, carriers or any freight Industry stakeholder can obtain validation status for brokers and shippers simply by asking Siri or Alexa from their mobile device. This is a technology that no one else has.”
LoadPay
Fintech product LoadPay is still under development by Triumph Financial. The product will allow truckers to manage their banking and fuel expenses, and potentially get paid earlier by customers through linking to TriumphPay’s payments network. The goal is to make it easier for small fleets to run and grow their business through an all-in-one financial solution.
Triumph Financial originally unveiled LoadPay during its earnings announcement in January.
LoadPay, described as a “digital wallet,” aims to alleviate working capital challenges for smaller carriers. The company plans to incentivize “power users,” including brokers and factoring companies, to promote LoadPay, emphasizing its separate branding from TriumphPay. Triumph Financial CEO Aaron Graft views this strategy as creating a network of networks, maximizing LoadPay’s success through widespread distribution among industry stakeholders.
While the company attended MATS to gain feedback from owner-operators and small fleets, specifics on LoadPay’s launch date and features remain undisclosed.
Brief Bytes
Trucker Path introduced Trucker Path for Brokerages on Wednesday to help smaller brokers manage loads more efficiently. It offers enhanced visibility and streamlines operations, enabling brokers to dispatch directly to drivers and track loads. The app also benefits carriers, improving safety and productivity. The company plans to showcase the new technology at TIA’s Capital Ideas conference next Wednesday.
Chicago-based FourKites and BuyCo, a leading container shipping platform, announced on Wednesday a new partnership to offer shippers comprehensive visibility and control throughout the container shipping process. With access to BuyCo’s global carrier network and FourKites’ supply chain visibility tools, shippers can optimize routes, reduce costs and mitigate risks.
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