New owner-operator crowd-sourced info service starts up

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Updated Jun 19, 2013

The folks at the startup BoxSmart company have a big goal in mind with what they’re set up to do with crowd-sourced information from drivers and independent owner-operators rating shippers, brokers, and lanes by experience and price: to “disrupt broker hold on rates” for independents in negotiation efforts by driving greater “price transparency in truck transportation.”

One of the features currently available at goBoxSmart.com determines best-margin lanes in various segments based on aggregation of public load postings.One of the features currently available at goBoxSmart.com determines best-margin lanes in various segments based on aggregation of public load postings.

How they propose to do that is by collecting owner-operator-provided invoices / lane info and index pricing information along lanes. Further, three sections of the website — Lane report, Margin calculator and Driver intelligence — respectively take real-time rate / cost reports on lanes (in addition to analyzing high-margin lanes nationwide based on searchable aggregation of free-load-board postings and in future on operator-provided information, they’re hoping), offer easy-to-use tools for calculating potential profitability for negotiation purposes based on your own business’ data, and accept operator reports in shipper/receiver experiences, lumpers and brokers.

Carriers of all sizes no doubt would find such information of great use in focusing efforts on problem shippers or receivers.

The driver-based tools are free to use — if you actively share information, you’ll gain access to information yourself, the site purveyors say. Given it’s in its infancy, there’s not likely to be much available as yet, but with time it could well prove useful.

Other incentives to share have to do simply with direct cash, ultimately. Prepaid debit cards will be issued in $10 increments for every 10 verified submissions of info with the site, makers say. You can help them “kick the tires,” as it were, at this point via goboxsmart.com. You can email suggestions directly via lanehoney [at] goboxsmart.com.

Company cofounder Roseanne Stanzione is an NYC-based former Wall Street analyst type who calls herself an “accidental champion of fair pricing for drivers … “I was asked to look at trucking and quickly fell in love with the people and the industry,” she’s quoted in a press release. “What struck me most — the truck capacity market is screaming for disruption. I knew I could help.”

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