“FreightWaves is launching SONAR 6.0, with new features that make the SONAR data platform even easier to use and will help transportation companies make data-driven decisions at all levels of their organizations,” said Craig Fuller, FreightWaves founder and CEO. “SONAR 6.0 features greater accessibility for its subscribers, as well as single-focus apps for simplicity, better integration with users’ systems and adaptability for users’ brand equity.”
Fuller continued, “I’m very pleased to announce that Lane Signal, SONAR Signals open API, and Mission Control are now available, and each product has great potential to help our clients build their businesses.”
SONAR Lane Signal app – actionable information at the lane level
By monitoring load tenders, SONAR users can get advanced analytics on the condition of the freight market, long before spot market data indicates market changes. “The only challenge was trying to interpret freight market activity into an actionable decision at the lane level,” Fuller explained.
With SONAR Lane Signal, users can access analytics down to the granular level of a lane. SONAR Lane Signal is a consolidated dashboard that gives shippers, carriers and brokers real-time trucking spot rates, pricing power information, and volume and capacity data on any origin-destination pair in the continental U.S. Lane Signal automatically aggregates and analyzes data from a number of sources to give operators a clear read into lanes they search.
Lane Signal’s Pricing Power gauges utilize numerous SONAR indices along with proprietary algorithms to distill and score whether a shipper or carrier has negotiating strength on a particular lane. The Lane Signal app shows the current day’s and previous week’s negotiating strength on a lane-by-lane basis.
A Lane Signal user simply enters the origin and destination cities of the lane; the app does the rest. Lane Signal allows users to see current data, as well as week-over-week, month-over-month and year-over-year historical pricing data on trucking lanes. This information can assist the user in pricing freight by lane (for example, Los Angeles to Chicago). This means they can price freight movements more accurately.
To further enhance the experience, FreightWaves added natural language analytics and monitoring to the Lane Signal platform. This helps the user quickly and accurately interpret what is happening at the origin and destination of a given lane.
Graphically, a map on Lane Signal will show the lane, with a line representing the route and a rollover for miles. The origin and destination cities, as well as surrounding areas, will show haul strength down to the Zip 3 granularity. In addition, when a user comes back to the Lane Signal tool, the last/preferred view will automatically be shown.
Available as an app and accessible across an organization
SONAR subscribers can give others in their organizations access to Lane Signal. It can be configured as a stand-alone app within SONAR, providing lane intelligence to the organization. For example, at a freight brokerage, those on the brokerage floor can use the Lane Signal app to quote rates on specific lanes based on the latest SONAR information.
In addition, Lane Signal is available as part of a subscriber’s application program interface (API), enabling it to be used in clients’ transportation management systems (TMS) or partner portals.
FreightWaves opens up SONAR Signals to third-party developers
Fuller pointed out that until SONAR 6.0, third-party technology vendors didn’t have an easy way to get SONAR data onto their own platforms. But SONAR Signals is available for free to any third-party developer.
SONAR Signals bring the intelligence of SONAR’s platform to TMS and software vendors. With SONAR Signals, transportation software companies and providers can integrate SONAR’s near-time market data into their platforms. SONAR Signals allows them to provide more freight market intelligence around the types of activities with which they currently serve the freight community.
“SONAR Signals takes in all of the real-time data that comes from tender requests and supplements it with market data from the other decision points that are inside of SONAR and actually ranks each and every lane,” Fuller said.
“Here’s the important thing – if you’re running an asset-based trucking company, price isn’t the single most important thing about your business – it’s keeping the trucks running.” And because SONAR uses algorithmic criteria based on those factors, a carrier can determine which lanes provide a more profitable load,” Fuller said.
“We’re very excited about the rollout of SONAR Signals – it’s going to change the way people think about freight,” he said.
How SONAR Signals works
When a SONAR subscriber at a freight brokerage looks up a specific lane in the brokerage’s TMS, SONAR Signals will appear in the window, displaying the relative pricing power held by shippers and carriers in the origin and destination freight markets.
SONAR Signals helps freight market participants price lanes with simple ratings based on real-time and historical data, including volumes, tender rejections and previously assessed spot rates. SONAR Signals makes it easy for professionals to check real-time market conditions without deviating from their normal workflow and processes.
The SONAR Signals API pulls information from SONAR’s databases – a direct, seamless feed of SONAR analytics into the tools that logistics professionals are already trained to use in their jobs.
Both the origin and destination of a given lane affect the price paid for transportation. At the simplest level, carriers can charge more to leave headhaul markets – and must charge less to leave backhaul markets. The desirability of a destination market also affects price. Inbound rates to certain markets usually reflect that it’s difficult to find freight leaving those markets.
Most operators rely on their experience or general rules of thumb to decide how attractive a particular destination market is, but market conditions change all the time. It pays to know when a quiet backhaul market is suddenly surging with freight, and likewise for a reliable headhaul market that has abruptly gone quiet.
That kind of against-the-grain volatility is more common than many logistics professionals realize, but real-time data is necessary to take advantage of it.
Mission Control is a customizable TV network
“The big idea behind Mission Control is bringing the FreightWavesTV experience directly onto your operational floors – and the floors of your customers and prospects,” Fuller said. “And we’re creating the opportunity to also have SONAR data directly on these big boards – bringing the SONAR experience into a market dashboard.”
FreightWaves is offering clients their own customizable TV network. “Mission Control can be customized to your audience, can feature your data, and promotes your brand to as many companies and people that you want,” explained Fuller.
Mission Control is powered by FreightWaves SONAR data and the award-winning FreightWavesTV video platform. Mission Control delivers premium content covering all modes of transportation. Fuller said, “Mission Control merges the freight-related news and data that you and your customers need on one powerful TV platform.”
Fuller continued, “Each Mission Control client has a distinct URL that can be provided to as many internal/external audience members as you want. For 3PLs and carriers, you can give a customized white-label link to your shipper customers, remote offices or driver communities. Mission Control provides a customizable TV feed delivered via the internet to your audience. You can drive awareness of freight market conditions while reinforcing your brand and capabilities. Mission Control sets you apart from your competitors in a unique and powerful way,” he added.
Leverage data with customers
The internal and external customers of those companies purchasing Mission Control can stay ahead of the curve using its near-time data (direct from SONAR) and video content from FreightWavesTV. Viewers will be provided with information they cannot get anywhere else, branded specifically for your company.
Mission Control lets clients choose the most critical insights, derived from billions of data points generated by SONAR each day, and deliver that information directly to decision-makers at current and prospective customers. The insights and timely data and information – provided on a customized platform – will help viewers navigate market changes. Mission Control will also keep your company top of mind when it comes to servicing their needs.
Share data and insights across your entire company
“Not only can Mission Control be provided to customers, it can be used as an internal data and information source for your employees. You can keep your team up to speed with critical content. Moreover, you can go even deeper by delivering your own data and media to your employees,” Fuller said. “Your employees are your most important asset – and Mission Control is a great vehicle to keep them informed and to help your company.”
How Mission Control works
Starting at $2,000 a month, Mission Control can be customized to show the most relevant videos, commercials and data sets, on a customized display. FreightWavesTV provides 8 hours of new content Monday through Friday. Mission Control clients have the option to choose which SONAR data sets and content from FreightWavesTV are broadcast to customers and/or your employees.
More value can be added by using FreightWaves’ integration tools and APIs to deliver your company’s own data and critical insights for both internal and external customers. “By integrating your own datasets and media, Mission Control brings a whole new level of awareness to your company’s operations,” Fuller said. “Critical content is delivered in a way that is fast and easy to understand.”
Combining SONAR data and insight with FreightWavesTV content, Mission Control provides your audience “everything freight.” Mission Control can deliver premium content covering one mode – or all modes – of transportation.
Your audience will know more, faster – thanks to you and Mission Control. They can stop operating off yesterday’s information and start making decisions based on today’s data – and because Mission Control carries your brand, there is constant reinforcement of what your company provides.
“Remember, this is your audience, receiving your data and information,” Fuller said. “They will get near-time SONAR data from the industry’s most powerful platform. Mission Control will also give them the varied programming of FreightWavesTV. Your company and your brand will be providing actionable data directly to your key customers.”
For more information on SONAR 6.0, please fill out the form below and a member of the SONAR team will reach out to you.
About SONAR
SONAR is the first platform to provide real-time market data based on tendered transactions. It offers over 150,000 indices, most of which are updated daily. The world’s fastest, most accurate freight data includes trucking spot rate indices, tender indices and market balance indices. SONAR freight tender indices are created based on actual electronic load requests from shippers to carriers, meaning you know that the index is measuring an actual load transaction.
SONAR offers proprietary data that comes from actual load tenders, electronic logging devices and transportation management systems, along with dozens of third-party global freight and logistics-related index providers. SONAR offers the fastest freight market data in the world, across all major modes of traffic. The SONAR platform is the only freight forecasting and analytics platform that offers real-time freight market intelligence driven off actual freight contract tenders.
About FreightWavesTV
FreightWavesTV is fast, data-driven news and analysis delivered to you, wherever you may be. The FWTV team combines the best in broadcast journalism with tribal knowledge to bring you inside information about what is happening in the freight market right now. From deep dives to fast facts, FreightWavesTV covers the world of freight like no other source. FreightWavesTV streams live from 9:00 a.m.-4:30 p.m. ET Monday-Friday on FreightWaves.com, tv.freightwaves.com and on devices such as Apple TV, Roku and Amazon Fire. The network consists of 100% original programming and has over 500,000 views per week, equivalent to the number of views that WatchESPN receives.