Uber Freight’s new dedicated lanes feature allows small carriers to commit to a lane for up to three months to bring in a steady source of revenue.Uber Freight in early September will launch a feature that allows owner-operators and other small carriers to book dedicated lanes, with fixed rates, with shippers through its online portal.
Raj Subbiah, Uber Freight’s head of product, said carriers can search for lanes and choose the days they want to commit to a lane to have a consistent source of revenue each week.
“Dedicated lanes are harder to develop for small carriers because there are not too many options to develop those relationships with shippers through brokers,” Subbiah said. “Our new feature gives smaller carriers the ability to do that so they have consistent revenue coming in from Uber Freight.”
The dedicated lanes service will first launch on Uber Freight’s web platform in early September and will be available on the company’s mobile carrier app at a later date.
When owner-operators go into their Uber Freight account, they can search for dedicated loads on specific lanes. The system will then show fixed rates for the lanes up front for carriers to see what they will be paid for the duration of the agreement.
Dedicated lane commitment lengths in the new system vary, but the maximum length is three months. Subbiah said carriers can choose how long they want to commit to a lane, along with choosing which days of the week they want to commit. Carriers can also choose as many dedicated lanes as they want.
“When we launch, we’re not limited anybody from participating in any dedicated lanes,” Subbiah said. “That applies to owner-operators with one truck and fleets with multiple trucks. The goal is for us and our carriers, if they want for stability, to leverage the new feature as much as they can.”
Uber Freight noted that if a carrier commits to a dedicated lane and the shipper’s volume falls through, the carrier will no longer be held responsible for their end of the agreement.
