Jun 16, 2022

6 Keys Steps for Owner Operator to Navigate Down Markets

Small Fleet recap: How should owner-operators manage downturns? Understanding your costs and developing quality relationships are key, says Trucker Path’s Oliver This fireside chat recap is from the FreightWaves virtual Small Fleet & Owner-Operator Summit on Wednesday. FIRESIDE CHAT TOPIC: What steps can owner-operators take to manage downturns? DETAILS: Owner-operators face increasing uncertainty in the freight markets, but there are steps they can take to handle whatever the market throws at them. Understanding your costs and building quality relationships serve carriers better than taking the “bear down and hope” approach that small fleets have operated under in the past. SPEAKER: Chris Oliver is the chief marketing officer of Trucker Path. BIO: Oliver has more than 25 years’ experience leading small to midsize businesses. In addition to Trucker Path, he led growth and development efforts for several transportation brands, including Cargomatic, Zonar and PrePass. He holds degrees in marketing, international management and finance. KEY QUOTES FROM OLIVER “It all comes down to the basics. How do you know if you’re making any money if you don’t understand what your costs are? So the very first that you have to do is understand those costs. And there’s a lot to consider there — it’s not just your truck and your fuel.” “Over time, after you have built a relationship and trust and that shipper knows you’re a go-to guy that’s going to get the job done for you, they tend to loosen the purse strings a little and trust you a little bit more and share a little bit more of the revenue. Just to build those types of go-to relationships over time is just a smart thing to do.” “We’re not just here to book a load, send it to you and get our little percentage out of the way. We’re trying to help people be better businesspeople.” Source: <a href="https://www.freightwaves.com/news/small-fleet-recap-how-should-owner-operators-manage-downturns">FreightWaves </a>

Jun 17, 2022

Trucker Path Launches Dispatcher Service <center>Chris Oliver, Trucker Path’s chief marketing officer, announces the company’s dispatcher service on Thursday, March 24, at the Mid-America Trucking Show in Louisville, Ky.</center>LOUISVILLE, Ky. – <a href="https://truckerpath.com/https://truckerpath.com/">Trucker Path </a>is launching a dispatch service aimed at decreasing the amount of office work for drivers. Chris Oliver, Trucker Path’s chief marketing officer, announced the new service on Thursday, March 24, during a media event at the Mid-America Trucking Show. “With Trucker Path Dispatch, we handle all the back-office work so drivers can just concentrate on driving,” Oliver said. “The personalized approach lets drivers determine their lane and commodity preferences, and then we find the loads they want to haul at profitable rates, eliminate forced dispatches, handle the check calls, and also help with finding parking and the best places to shut down at the end of a shift. “It’s that simple. With Trucker Path Dispatch, drivers will experience fewer hassles, earn more money, and get paid more quickly.” The cost of the service is 5% per booked load. Oliver said there are no long-term contracts or subscription fees. Drivers who are interested in the service can submit their motor carrier authority, certificate of insurance and W-9 tax forms, sign a service level agreement and begin sharing their load and lane preferences with a personal dispatcher. Trucker Path Dispatch features include: Load sourcing and negotiation – Trucker Path says it will find profitable loads drivers want to haul by gathering their preferences and sharing them with their personal dispatcher who is armed with powerful artificial intelligence tools and millions of data points. Truck navigation – Drivers are sent truck-specific routes to their Trucker Path application. Drivers also will receive information about pickup and delivery locations, timing windows and any special instructions. Status reporting – Dispatchers handle check calls with real-time reporting to keep customers informed without interrupting the driver. Compliance monitoring – The personal dispatcher will monitor compliance and offer suggestions on safe places to shut down for rest periods and more than 300,000 points of interest and parking locations. Digital paperwork – Drivers can scan and submit trip documents to the dispatcher in order to expedite the payment process. Trucker Path, which is based in Phoenix, offers a mobile app built for truckers. “With over a million users on our app, we have the unique advantage of directly contacting our drivers to ask them what they like and want,” Oliver said. “The features in this initial launch of Dispatch were the top selections. Just like we do with all our offerings, we will continue to ask our community of drivers and continue to build this service until it has all the features they want and need.” LL Source: <a href="https://landline.media/trucker-path-launches-dispatcher-service/">LAND LINE</a>

Mar 24, 2022

Route planning tool helps drivers overcome daily frustrations High driver turnover is an issue almost everyone in the logistics industry is familiar with, if not grappling with, as drivers jump between carriers in pursuit of better opportunities. Drivers leave jobs for a variety of reasons — to receive a sign-on bonus or pay raise at a different trucking company, to seek routes closer to home, to find better management or even to change professions. <a href="https://truckerpath.com/">Trucker Path</a> has been giving truck drivers tools since 2013 to make navigating life on the road more enjoyable and efficient, keeping more people in the driver’s seat. It does this through one critical action: listening to drivers. “So many companies in the logistics industry funnel a large amount of money into technology development, but few remember to ask those who are using the technology daily what their needs are and what works best for them,” said Chris Oliver, chief marketing officer at Trucker Path. At its core, Trucker Path is an app built off of crowdsourced feedback from drivers. While drivers are likely to find benefits and drawbacks working for any motor carrier, they encounter the same day-to-day realities that come with driving a semi-truck no matter what company name is on their door. Trucker Path listens to what drivers need and hands them the tools to mitigate some of the most common struggles they face everywhere they go. Tied for No. 1 on the list of issues drivers face are compensation and truck parking, according to the American Transportation Research Institute’s <a href="https://truckingresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/ATRI-Top-Industry-Issues-2021.pdf">2021 survey</a> of critical industry issues. The next top four spots are detention and delay at customer facilities, fuel prices, driver training standards and hours-of-service rules. By crowdsourcing information from drivers, Trucker Path helps them plan their routes and enables them to alter those plans when necessary. It helps them find available parking, be prepared for weigh stations, know what to expect at shipping docks and helps drivers save money on fuel. Trucker Path does this by connecting drivers with hundreds of thousands of points of interest along their routes and sharing the ratings, reviews and real-time updates provided by millions of other drivers within the Trucker Path community. “It’s almost a symbiotic relationship between the platform and technology and the driver base itself,” Oliver said. Drivers can see and share information such as availability of truck stop overnight parking, quality of truck stops, whether a weigh station is open and its wait time, shipping dock wait time, as well as nearby maintenance facilities, restaurants, stores and more. The app also shows fuel stations and fuel-optimized routes that help drivers save money along the way to their destinations. Other insights, such as specific truck entrances at docks and the ability to share feedback regarding sharp turns and other truck restrictions, provide even greater navigational efficacy for drivers as they plan and drive their routes. By providing feedback in the app about these points of interest, drivers are able to help other users. Trucker Path recently also launched its COMMAND TMS solution, which integrates into the Trucker Path app. COMMAND allows carriers to do such things as manage drivers and assets, source loads, build jobs, dispatch, provide instantaneous location and progress updates, scan documents and create invoices. “Having your TMS directly tied to the most popular app for truckers makes for a much easier experience and smoother implementation and user experience for both sides,” Oliver said. “About a third of long-haul drivers already use Trucker Path as it is. So there’s a very good chance from a fleet perspective that when you implement COMMAND, what you’re really doing is using the driver’s preferred tool they’re already using to serve the fleet’s purposes.” DISPATCH is another new service recently made available by Trucker Path. Personal dispatchers take the time to get to know their driver customers, including their lane and commodity preferences, where they live, how long they like to run, and what their favorite restaurants are, in order to help find them the best jobs that not only pay well but adhere to their personal preferences. Once the loads are sourced and agreed to, the dispatchers send the job to the driver’s Trucker Path app, which allows them to either accept or reject a load. “The dispatchers themselves are really a conduit or concierge to all our technologies, helping customers recognize all the benefits we offer via a personal touch and a familiar voice,” Oliver said. Giving drivers the ability to make their daily work lives more productive and convenient is a direct path to boosting driver satisfaction and increasing efficiency and productivity for the entire company. Source: <a href="https://www.freightwaves.com/news/route-planning-tool-helps-drivers-overcome-daily-frustrations">FREIGHT WAVES</a>

Apr 28, 2022