- Enhanced “real-time heat map” feature enables brokers to compare aggregated market capacity graphically in a region, adjust broker resources to leverage opportunities, balance resources, fill gaps.
- New productivity analysis tools provide insight into load coverage efficiency, allows brokers to measure and compare team productivity against market averages, “flex” and redirect resources from market to market to improve performance.
- Functionality resides within Smart Capacity’s secure, private network, ensuring broker proprietary information is protected, and confidentiality maintained.
RESTON, Va., Nov. 05, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Trucker Tools LLC, which provides Smart Capacity, a shipment visibility, carrier capacity management and predictive freight-matching solution for the transportation industry, announced today the launch of two new broker productivity tools.
The company is introducing an expanded market-level “real-time heat map” feature. Today, brokers on Smart Capacity can view a graphical map representing available capacity in a city or region specific to their network of qualified and preferred carriers. Under the expanded “real time heat map,” brokers now can see not only their own customer-specific network, but also an aggregated, timely view of all loads and all trucks in a city or market region, such as Chicago or Atlanta.
“An important distinction with the Smart Capacity heat map, unlike others, is that ours is built on real-time, accurate data,” noted Prasad Gollapalli, Trucker Tools founder and CEO. “Our heat map is refreshed and updated constantly, providing the timeliest view of current market status. That’s a huge value differentiator for our customers.”
Heat maps are a widely-used management tool which illustrate the ratio of available trucks to available loads in a region. Importantly, the Smart Capacity real-time heat map, which presents an aggregated view of the larger overall market, does not display any customer-specific detail on trucks or loads at market level. This is a key design element whose purpose is to protect and maintain confidentiality for the broker. It’s a principal value feature of the Smart Capacity platform, which operates as a private, secure network with strong access controls and protocols for ensuring data security and integrity.
The productivity analysis tools provide metrics and data which show average times within a market for all brokers to cover loads. Brokers can then view these market indices, developed with real-time, validated data, and measure their own teams’ performance against an aggregated average, again, for a specific market area, city or region.
Lastly the new feature also enables brokers to measure the same key performance indicators in multiple cities, providing market insights and intelligence that can lead to more efficient staffing and resource allocation from region to region.
“These enhancements were at the top of the list of recommendations that came out of our recent Customer Advisory Board,” said Gollapalli. The new features are incorporated into the Smart Capacity platform providing predictive freight-matching and carrier and capacity relationship management solutions and are being deployed at no extra charge to customers.
Gollapalli noted that the expanded heat map helps brokers understand in a timelier manner where they’re out of balance, for example, where they have too many loads and not enough trucks, and vice versa. “In this case, the heat map would help the broker discover that in a given market, they need to expand their carrier base to cover a rising load count,” he said. “Alternatively, they may discover that they have ample trucks in a market but not enough loads, identifying the need to redirect their sales team to focus on that region and find more loads.”
At the end of the day, the broker wants their sales and operations teams focused on those markets which need the most help, finding more trucks or securing the most profitable loads with preferred carriers in the least amount of time, and keeping preferred carriers busy with repeat loads and reloads.
“Our more comprehensive heat map, coupled with the new productivity measurement tools, give brokers fresh, reliable intelligence that allows them to adjust operations and deploy resources to maximize opportunities and efficiencies. You can’t fix what you can’t measure, and these new tools provide the real-time data and metrics to make informed, rapid and accurate decisions that grow revenue and increase profit,” concluded Gollapalli.
Both feature and function enhancements are currently in beta testing with select customers, with full availability expected by the end of the year.
Over the past year, Trucker Tools has been experiencing accelerated growth. Smart Capacity, introduced in September 2017, has since signed many of the industry’s top brokers and 3PLs to this predictive freight-matching and carrier capacity and relationship management platform. Smart Capacity is integrated with the Trucker Tools Mobile Driver App, which since its launch in 2013, has been downloaded by more than 500,000 truckers and has over 100,000 small fleets as active users. The smart-phone app provides 16 of the most sought-after information resources and support tools truckers want for managing their business while on the road. The Trucker Tools product portfolio also includes Load Track, which provides smart-phone GPS-based precise visibility into loads and trucks in transit and automates the process of gathering timely visibility information for brokers.
The company in July this year also completed a Series A funding round, raising $4.4 million in additional capital from current investors to support product development and customer acquisition.
About Trucker Tools -- Trucker Tools, based in Reston, Va., is the leading provider of trip planning, shipment visibility and freight matching solutions for the transportation industry. Its ground-breaking Smart Capacity platform uses accurate, real-time data and powerful algorithms to optimally match freight by predicting when and where capacity will become available, days in advance. The company’s popular driver smartphone app has been downloaded by over 500,000 owner operators and small-carrier drivers to access information and services conveniently while on the road. Load Track is a robust feature in the app that connects drivers with carriers and freight brokers to eliminate manual check calls. Visit Trucker Tools at www.truckertools.com or contact us directly at: sales@truckertools.com
Media Contact:
Gary Frantz, Trucker Tools, (925) 594-1434, garynfrantz@hotmail.com