Trucking is a difficult and sometimes dangerous profession. Drivers are regularly called on to hop in their trucks and move toward danger. This is especially true in the case of natural disasters like hurricanes and wildfires. When drivers are working to navigate devastated cities and move goods into disaster zones, the last thing they should have to worry about is check calls from brokers.
Choptank Transport CEO Geoff Turner knows the importance of being able to track loads without making check calls in high-pressure situations firsthand. Turner often works with shippers who service food banks after disasters, including storms like Hurricane Laura.
“When you have trucks going into disaster zones, it can be a mixed bag. Communication can be limited and infrastructure can be damaged, so the ability to know where something is without picking up the phone is important,” Turner said. “A lot of those loads are particularly time sensitive because crews and first responders are standing by to help unload them. We used to rely purely on check calls, but tracking works much better in these situations.”
Choptank partners with Trucker Tools to track about 90% of their loads, whether they are going into disaster-stricken areas or not. This partnership helps Choptank streamline their driver communication process and provide the real-time tracking shippers have come to expect
“After a significant weather event, needs will shift, and they will shift quickly,” Turner said. “Real-time tracking allows us to quickly identify where a truck is and send them elsewhere, streamlining the process of relocating capacity.”
Visibility has become a keyword in the transportation industry over the past few years, and partnering with the right software provider is an integral part of providing top-notch insights to customers every single day, regardless of the weather.
“The visibility side of the business is as important as finding a truck now. It is part of the process, and we have customers that require it,” Turner said. “If we want access to quality freight, shippers want to know where their load is.”
Choptank initially partnered with Trucker Tools to provide visibility to their customers without having to train their carriers on multiple systems and work with multiple partners in the visibility market. Turner noted that Trucker Tools has been a standout partner not only because of the quality of their product but also because the Trucker Tools team makes it easy to customize offerings in whatever way works best for the broker and carriers involved.
In addition to tracking, Trucker Tools provides load matching services and a driver-friendly interface. The Trucker Tools mobile application, downloaded to-date by nearly 990,000 truckers, provides drivers with tools like automated booking, parking locators and fuel prices, giving them an incentive to download and use the app outside of its tracking mechanism.