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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.
More importantly, does Amazon know what brokers are expected to do for that 15%? You can try to "appify" everything but unlike a taxi, trucking actually has some significant legwork done by "dispatch/brokers". Do customers and drivers really want to directly communicate with each other about arrival times, dock bays, etc. and if they do, are customers going to ignore the cost of the extra staff they will have to hire to communicate with the drivers?
Not to say there is not more streamlining to do in this space but FreightQuote and many other small startups are providing as "slimmed down" of a service as customers are really willing to bare. If the customer wants to use an app they are a) really tiny or b) will see if bringing what amounts to freight brokers in house makes sense vs. outsourcing, which has already been an option for them anyway.
I helped install and configure truck dispatching software in the late 90's / early 00's, and I am honestly surprised that profession still exists today. Lack of technology investment is the only answer I can come up with. There is nothing they did a decade ago that cannot be done by software.
They recommend the best routes for the drivers -> A large truck optimized version of Google maps could do this much better than any human
They keep track of fuel costs and other transportation costs to ensure each route is profitable -> Easily done by software
They know their driver's habits -> So would tracking software which would be far more objective
They look ahead for connecting loads -> Much better done by algorithms
They basically work 60-80 hours a week -> Algorithms work 168 hours a week
They negotiate load price -> As if Amazon couldn't do this in a more automated fashion. It's certainly in their core competency.
They have a friendly relationship with their drivers -> The one thing software would have trouble with, but virtually all communication could easily be moved to call centers.
I happen to be the IT Director for a transportation company. I can assure you that while they have lagged behind in the past, the industry is rapidly catching up.
Dynamic automated routing has been part of my company since 2005. Routes are selected by fuel contract price, tolls, hours of service, altitude, etc.
Fuel and fuel tax tracking has been automated for over a decade
Driver habits > Still tends to be manual due to drivers' needs that are constantly changing. Family home time, emergencies, vacations, etc.
load planning is pretty much fully optimized except for instances listed above.
Some loads can be automatically accepted or denied via EDI, but it depends on capacity and shipper requirements.
Our lane prices are set. We rarely negotiate on a load by load basis.
Driver relationships are crucial to keeping good drivers happy. Sure, there are lots of drivers (even in a driver shortage), but there is always a severe lack of *good* drivers. It's the most challenging part of the industry next to regulations. Call centers tend to piss off drivers. Some want to talk to the same dispatchers every day. Some only want to communicate via their mobilecomm device or smartphone app.
Modern transportation software like McLeod LoadMaster or TMW Suite is very advanced.
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson