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Amazon Is Secretly Building an 'Uber For Trucking' App, Setting Its Sights On a Massive $800 Billion Market (businessinsider.com)

Posted by msmash on from the there's-an-Uber-for-that dept.

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.

17 of 97 comments (clear)

  1. Savings by colinrichardday · · Score: 2

    How much of the savings would be passed on to consumers?

    1. Re:Savings by mlts · · Score: 2

      I wonder how much it will help owner/operators and the truck drivers. As it stands now, the truck driving industry is following textiles and meat packing into oblivion, where even a minimal living is tough to do.

    2. Re:Savings by dj245 · · Score: 2

      I wonder how much it will help owner/operators and the truck drivers. As it stands now, the truck driving industry is following textiles and meat packing into oblivion, where even a minimal living is tough to do.

      I wonder how this will affect immigration policies, both in the USA and elsewhere. My company ships heavy industrial equipment and parts regularly. It is quite rare to see a US-born driver for these loads (step deck or flatbed, other types of trucking may vary). The barrier to entry is low- low education or english ability is not a huge barrier, which makes these jobs viable for foreign immigrants. If the driver workforce starts shrinking, and this seems inevitable, foreign immigration of low-skill workers will become an even more important topic than it is now.

      --
      Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
    3. Re:Savings by Higaran · · Score: 2

      What do you mean when the driver work force starts shrinking, it has been shrinking for at least 5 years now. It is one of the few industries where you'll get hired almost on the spot as long as you can pass a drug test. The problem, is that it is seen as a low class job, so few people go into it, even though it is better paying than alot of industries.

  2. Optimal Tours? by erikscott · · Score: 4, Funny

    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.

  3. So...free or less than 15%? by xxxJonBoyxxx · · Score: 4, Insightful

    >> 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....

    1. Re:So...free or less than 15%? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      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.

    2. Re:So...free or less than 15%? by Migraineman · · Score: 2

      I was gonna ask the same question, followed by "Don't we already have this kind of infrastructure in-place with the LTL (Less Than Load) freight services?"

    3. Re:So...free or less than 15%? by Higaran · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Basically Amazon is going to put up a load board, similar to truckstop.com or many other similar sites. Trucking is pretty much as streamlined as it's going to get, in reality they want to get people to move their freight as cheap as possible, and if they can get some kind of a commission on other freight by being the broker then it's a win for them. Right now Amazon is pretty much going to expand into everything possible because they need to keep expanding, so they will be experimenting with various industries, I wouldn't be surprised if they started selling their own branded TV's, laptops, refrigerators, washers, dryers, or pretty much anything you have in the house soon.

    4. Re:So...free or less than 15%? by ranton · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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?

      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.

      --
      -- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
    5. Re:So...free or less than 15%? by acoustix · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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
    6. Re:So...free or less than 15%? by dandrews216 · · Score: 2

      Most of your assertions are spot on. I do take a bit of exception with "They recommend the best routes for the drivers -> A large truck optimized version of Google maps could do this much better than any human" - especially for hazardous materials (like gas and oil). Not every truck can drive on every road and Google maps has no way to handle this (yet). That's why software like PC*MILER is quite popular. Trucking is one of the few industries where there is a good ol' boy network. "I like Joe, he's a good guy, let's give him the load because he's idle."

  4. Middle-man by AlienSexist · · Score: 3, Funny

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

  5. Re:liability, permits, hazmat, max hours on duty, by caseih · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

  6. Re:Savings-transporters by SubtleGuest · · Score: 3, Funny

    Like Jason Statham?

  7. Re:liability, permits, hazmat, max hours on duty, by Sloppy · · Score: 2

    At many truck stops youll see a kiosk for OO's (owner-operators) to browse available jobs.

    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.

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    As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
  8. AdBlock by hduff · · Score: 2

    The linked site won't display when you run AdBlock.

    Here's a free link: http://www.inc.com/business-in...

    --
    "I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert