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Amazon Is Secretly Building an 'Uber For Trucking' App, Setting Its Sights On a Massive $800 Billion Market (businessinsider.com)
Amazon is building an app that matches truck drivers with shippers, a new service that would deepen its presence in the $800 billion trucking industry, a person with direct knowledge of the matter told Business Insider. From the report: The app, scheduled to launch next summer, is designed to make it easier for truck drivers to find shippers that need goods moved, much in the way Uber connects drivers with riders. It would also eliminate the need for a third-party broker, which typically charges a commission of about 15% for doing the middleman work. The app will offer real-time pricing and driving directions, as well as personalized features such as truck-stop recommendations and a suggested "tour" of loads to pick up and drop off. It could also have tracking and payment options to speed up the entire shipping process.
How much of the savings would be passed on to consumers?
in your life?
Once Amazon has enough data it will simply undercut your rates and boon, you are out of business.
All part of their grand plan to run the world. One stop shop for everything, made, shipped and sold by Amazon.
It will be cool if they can produce (provably) optimal "tours" for arbitrarily complicated sets of stops. It will be even cooler if they can do it in polynomial time.
>> It would also eliminate the need for a third-party broker, which typically charges a commission of about 15% for doing the middleman work
So what's Amazon planning to charge to be the new third-party broker? Nothing? Less than 15% Or....
And how many truckers are independents, and don't work for a trucking company to begin with?
Just wait till Amazon invents transporters. The transportation industry in it's entirety will be obliterated.
Shai Schticks:"You don't make peace with friends, you make peace with enemies"
"half the 'verse are middlemen and don't take kindly to being cut out" -- Capt. Malcolm Reynolds
- the app will continuously record video and audio starting with the bidding step, and you give it permission to combine any usable clips and to upload an episode of "Shipping Wars".
liability, permits, hazmat, max hours on duty, etc are all issues.
And if they pull an uber where the drivers don't have that much control things can get very bad and will Amazon be able to get off? Maybe from a law suit due to the EULA but what about DOT fines?
This is a fantastic idea, and unlike the Uber thing, this doesn't involve running afoul of local regulations. In other words, professional truck drivers are, well, professional drivers who are already highly regulated and drive for a living anyway. Anyone can become a truck driver if they are willing to do what it takes to get their commercial license, and follow the existing regulations for drivers (log books, vehicle inspections every day, rest breaks, etc). It's not at all like Uber's attempt to be a taxi company without being a taxi company.
There are several different kinds of hauling and some are more competitive than others. Freight hauling companies are always looking for new drivers. Bulk carriers (belly-dump grain trailers) are a bit more competitive in my area.
In my area most truckers who haul bulk goods already own their own trucks and trailers. Many of them work for a trucking company because it's quite difficult to chase loads on their own. Having a company and dispatcher to arrange things makes it easier to arrange loads. It's hard to make a good living this way though. The trucking company charges flat per tonne rates to the customer, and then they pay the driver per km. If a driver has a bad day and is down quite a while, that's less money for him. This service from Amazon would put more dollars in the pockets of drivers while possibly driving down the cost/tonne for customers. I see it is a good thing.
Amazon parrots Russian trucking cooperatives?
Anyone who's stumbled across the TV show Shipping Wars knows this already exists. It's called uShip.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
Perhaps the headline should be tweaked... 'Amazon Is No-So-Secretly Building an 'Uber For Trucking" App...'
What is Uber for regular Uber doing right now? That's right, self-driving cars.
This "Uber for Trucks" is just Amazon getting all the shippers into their system so they'll be in the database with contracts already signed as soon as the self-driving trucks are ready.
Nope, no sig
that have fathers that were taxi drives, now they want to reduce the number of truck drivers needed by making them more efficient. Now the children of truck drivers are going to starve to death. Uber truly is the corporation of death.
Those are things that are already regulated on a per-driver basis, irrespective of company they work for. None of that would change with Amazon helping drivers find loads. At any time a DOT agent can pull a truck over and inspect it, and examine the log book. This is something truck drivers already comply with. That won't change. I know lots of truck drivers who work for themselves. They already do these things. It's not at all like Uber's situation where private drivers who've never driven commercially are suddenly now driving taxis. Completely different scenario. Besides that, what Amazon might do is already being done by uShip.
I bet your fun at party's...
As an expat to Indonesia, theres this local app called Gojek, a play on the word ojek which is a freelance motorcycle rider with whom one negotiate a ride for a price.
This app has expanded to gocar(like uber) gotruck, gomassage, gotix(events n movies), goglam(makeup) and a whole lot of other matching platforms.
This seems stale from someone living in a country with usd300/month min wage.
There are already similar services in place. At many truck stops youll see a kiosk for OO's (owner-operators) to browse available jobs.
The only real diff is that with amazon youll be able to do it on your smartphone.
I was just thinking about this about a week ago!
CRAP!
That's why I'm so poor!
It would also eliminate the need for a third-party broker, which typically charges a commission of about 15% for doing the middleman work.
So Amazon is doing all of this for free? If not, how are they not also just another third-party broker that charges a commission?
Then NAFTA let trucks from Mexico in and US truckers started making more like $60k. Now its hard to make $40-45k between uShip and the legions of people who picked up trucker licenses after the 2008 crash and all the new immigrants. My dad retired in 2015 and made like $48k his last year, but living the kind of life he lived for most of his career would be impossible for a trucker today.
I will say that hazmat drivers still make good money but it's not a job you would want....
Hold up, NAFTA went into effect in 1994. Your dad was making $100k/yr in 1994 money? I'm aware that hazmat drivers get a bit extra, and they certainly should, but, was he doing 100-hour work weeks or something?
I don't think so...
I'd rather be working on this software than another chat app. It seems connected to reality and in competition with sane alternatives, not part of the fashion industry. It sounds like it would benefit humanity.
I don't want to do it if I have to work for Amazon, though: I heard their programmers are managed by political and disrespectful power-tripping smarm-balls, like banks.
Amazon has free shipping right?
Please, if anyone really wants to enter the logistics industry, don't listen to ShanghaiBill.
No commercial license is needed if you drive a two-axle bobtail, and don't cross state lines.
Again, you don't know what you are talking about. At least a chauffeur's license, medical card, and very expensive commercial auto insurance is necessary for any commercial operation outside of the farm loophole. If you have the capability of hauling more than 26k, then a class A would be required for running a trailer.
You can do a lot of around-town deliveries and short-hauls that big-rig drivers don't want to bother with.
Pure, uncut bullshit. Day routes and local deliveries typically are easier, pay better per hour worked, and gets you home every day with the kids and wife instead of a weekend a month. What you describe are the ideal jobs that mostly go to people with high seniority.
and follow the existing regulations for drivers (log books, vehicle inspections every day, rest breaks, etc).
You don't have to do any of that either.
You can't be serious. Hope you don't get caught. One infraction can wipe out a month of income. Rare is a Commercial Motor Vehicle Enforcement Officer that does not find more than one. Did you know that just answering your cellphone while being paid to drive commercially is nearly a $3000 fine? Merely telling your customer when you will be there or answering your boss's call can cost 3k. Just go ahead and dare not pulling over for a random inspection because "I don't have to follow existing regulations". They will nail your ass to the highway and take your license.
And remember, if you don't like what you find in the mission computer, you can always go to the bar. At the bar, there's oftentimes someone hanging around waiting to offer a job to anyone who walks in. Maybe they'll hit you up to move some shadier cargo/contraband, or they'll offer pirate bounties, or they might even try to recruit you from freight missions to doing combat missions for the military!
For the latter, make sure you have upgraded all your truck's weapons and gotten your combat rating and legal status up. Also, get expanded fuel tanks. Invariably there will be some deep strike mission far from any good place to refuel. So you'll either have to have big tanks, or you'll have to hunt enemy truckers to take their fuel to get you back home.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Might as well keep using the "Amazon Basics" brand tied in with the "Amazon Now" functionality. With that in mind:
Amazon Basics Prostitution: Clean, average-looking girls and boys for a minimum price.
Amazon Basics Marijuana: Average, seedless marijuana with a predictable THC content
Amazon Basics Firearms: Simple, high-capacity autoloading pistols and rifles
FedEx lost there 1099 cases in court
Current trucker here. That $100K figure is probably not made-up.
Not only is it possible, despite trucking's reputation of being "unskilled" labor for losers, but quite a few truckers have been pulling down incomes like that for *years* now. Of course, there are strings attached: a lot of those guys are owner/operators who practically LIVE in their trucks for something like 80% of the year; there are a shit-ton of non-driving duties for which you aren't making any extra money (eg pre-trip inspections, waiting for loading/unloading, maintenance, etc); and you should have had the parent clarify whether that $100K was *net* or *gross* (maintenance, repairs, tolls, fuel, tickets, permits, IFTA - a semi can generate a LOT of overhead, trust me on that). It's still good money (for now) but it's definitely not easy money.
I'm not even an owner/operator (don't want to be one) and even I am pulling down short of six figures annually myself. I don't have much of a social life, but I'm not starving.
This space for rent!
nice Escape Velocity ref.
Uber vs Amazon, give me some popcorn!
Thanks! Now that I think about it, how did health benefits work when in that situation (particulary, pre-obama-care)?
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"I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
Those are things that are already regulated on a per-driver basis, irrespective of company they work for. None of that would change with Amazon helping drivers find loads.
Clearly you haven't work around the trucking business. No things are regulated on a "load" basis. The driver only "drives" the truck. Things like load permits, hazmat permits are handled by the company if the driver works directly for a shipping company or handled by the Broker if they are independent. Drivers do not handle the getting of permits. Drivers only "drive the truck". Hell they don't do the loading or unloading. Ask a truck driver sometime to unload his truck and see the answer you get. Is Amazon going to all the permitting? I don't think so permitting takes a lot of time and money. Time by Humans.
I worked for a heavy rigging company once for some permits it took months of planning and thousands in permits. The main part was planning and prep work which had to be done by Humans. Trucking and Load Brokers have a large staff that does nothing but the permits and prep work for loads.
There's a lot more to shipping something larger than a bread box. It isn't as easy as picking up a drunk at 3rd and Main St.