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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.
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.
"half the 'verse are middlemen and don't take kindly to being cut out" -- Capt. Malcolm Reynolds
Like Jason Statham?