FreightWaves has formed the Trusted Rate Assessment Consortium (TRAC) to provide the freshest view of spot rates in the U.S. inside the new Market Dashboard application in SONAR. Combined with its database of millions of data points, SONAR has the most comprehensive view of the transportation markets available.
Craig Fuller, FreightWaves founder and CEO, stated, “Working alongside dozens of spot market participants, FreightWaves has created the freshest and most relevant set of data in the trucking spot market. FreightWaves TRAC is focused on creating transparency and consistency in spot market data. FreightWaves has eliminated much of the mystery inside of most trucking spot rate index products. Instead, FreightWaves TRAC provides a very transparent model to ensure its relevance.”
Fuller added, “This bold approach revolutionizes the information that brokers and carriers can access about conditions in the freight market at any moment in time.”
FreightWaves TRAC: Click here for more information and to request a demo
The trucking industry’s approach to spot rate measurement has been stagnant and somewhat deficient in reflecting the true pricing conditions of a lane. FreightWaves’ unique combination of data scientists and industry experts have joined forces to perfect spot rate reporting and fix some of the long-standing issues with rate data.
What makes FreightWaves TRAC rates different:
- Data is collected at the time a load is covered or accepted by the carrier.
- Minimum of 5 contributors with no single contributor accounting for more than 25% of the contributing loads in each lane.
- Rates are to the carrier (buy) and as of yesterday (will be updated at 8 a.m. ET)
- Spot rate market data for over 650k unique van and 300k unique reefer lanes (Linehaul + Fuel)
- Rates are weighted based on distance and time to value the more recent loads that are closer to the precise O/D pair the user specifies. This is superior to simple geographic and temporal expansion techniques in which all rates are valued equally.
More than simply a rate reporting tool, FreightWaves Market Dashboard provides market detail to assist with quick and profitable decision-making. A map that shows changes in capacity conditions is in the top right on the screen; red indicates a market is tightening and blue indicates loosening conditions along with a real-time animated radar. Lane Insights are available by clicking a toggle at the top of the map to provide additional market-level detail along with prescriptive action.
Looking at the market dashboard, you are prompted to enter your origin and destination in the form of zip5, zip3, or city/state combinations. You can choose between van or reefer data at the top of the screen. Once you enter your lane, you can save it in a queue at the bottom of the screen for ease of monitoring repetitive lanes. The current spot rate is displayed in the middle of the screen below the map with a historic trend line chart positioned at the bottom. The high rate is the 67th percentile and the low rate is the 33rd percentile value.
In an effort to be as transparent as possible, FreightWaves has included confidence scores to show you how representative the average rate is of the exact lane input. A confidence score is an indication of dispersion or variance around the average rate and the relative volume for a given lane. If the rate sample has values that are widely spread around the average rate and/or there is low volume, the confidence is low. If sample values are tightly packed around the average rate and or there is relatively high volume, then a confidence score will be high.
Quickly switch to the margin calculator to calculate a sell-rate in either a flat amount or percentage markup of your specification.
FreightWaves knows that rates are not the only information to measure a lane, but they are probably the most relatable. The addition of spot rate data makes SONAR users the fastest, most well-informed in the market.
The Market Dashboard is far from complete and will continue to grow as new contributors and data are added.