The highly anticipated release of SONAR 5.0 at FreightWaves LIVE in Chicago lived up to the hype. The multimodal freight market intelligence platform is FreightWaves’ most future-focused version to date.
With the 5.0 update, FreightWaves CEO Craig Fuller was eager to introduce SONAR as the first-ever freight market forecasting platform.
FreightWaves market analyst and expert Zach Strickland is excited to see the new tools in the update. As a former pricing manager, he appreciates SONAR’s ability to give accurate predictions of future market rates.
“We’re breaking out of our cube of looking at spot rates, market movements and volumes in the United States,” Strickland said. “Those are all very fundamentally sound measures, but we’re trying to figure out what’s going on before it happens.”
FreightWaves continues to learn new ways to improve the SONAR platform. Because SONAR 5.0 is currently in beta, we welcome user feedback and recommendations on how to improve our models and data sets.
Here are just a few of the newest features in SONAR 5.0:
SONAR Predictive Rates
The SONAR Predictive Rates forecasts market rates for the route between any two locations. Using FreightWaves’ scientific data sources, SONAR aggregates estimated future rates for your selected route up to a year in advance and even calculates the low, high and median prices.
SONAR Predictive Rates can be found at the bottom of the “Map Widget” dock on the SONAR “Dashboard” page. Once selected, simply input your route’s origin and destination and hit “Submit.”
SONAR Predictive Rates will automatically calculate a range of future rates for your selected route up to a year. Users even have the option to adjust the line-haul calculation using a fuel surcharge.
Seasonality Calendar
New to SONAR is the Seasonality Calendar, which shows when fruits and vegetables are in peak season. Perishables listed include apples, brussels sprouts, cabbage, herbs, kale, peaches, squash and so much more. The chart provides an extensive list of data for every perishable goods market for all 50 U.S. states.
The Seasonality Calendar page may be accessed on the Global Pages dock on the left-hand side of the dashboard.
Cargo Traffic
SONAR 5.0 provides the ability to track freight across all modes of transportation in real-time. From highway traffic status to boats and planes, SONAR is the ultimate eye in the sky.
To track freight traffic, head over to the dashboard page and click on the gear icon on the top left side of the map to access the map widget. Under the “map layer configurations” section, click on the options box to the right of the “vehicle traffic” option. Change the traffic sliders for each mode of transportation to “blue” and hit “submit.”
After selecting your desired modes of transportation, you now have access to view global cargo traffic. Hovering your cursor over aircraft or ships will provide detailed navigational information.