There are a multiplicity of smartphone apps out there for leased owner-ops from their leasing carriers, but I hadn’t seen anything quite like the “Ultimate Advantage” smartphone app from expediter Load One before we first wrote about it this time last year, after a story in sister fleet mag CCJ’s “Innovators” series from that time made it news to me. The app was subsequently deemed to be the No. 1 innovation among those featured last year by CCJ, so named at a recent event.
The innovation, it should be known, isn’t some padding-the-company-bottom-line enhancement (not directly, that’s sure) — rather, the app is a digital tool now used by the vast majority of Load One’s many leased owner-ops and drivers just a year or so into its existence. That tool, furthermore, does a lot of things, but chiefly it allows any owner-op leased there, at any time, to access data on available loads and missed load opportunities in any given area and for different time periods – to set themselves up best for success on the next load.
The app gives drivers a tool that pinpoints haul opportunities on a map, as shown here in a given area, among many other capabilities.In the sort of emergency-freight service that is the expedited trucking business, having information about where to be toward that end is, to say the least, a difficult proposition. Long waits between loads have been common there for years for many owner-ops. The app, as Load One head John Elliott explains in this week’s Overdrive Radio podcast, helps enable decision-making with a few swipes and taps, giving owner-ops clarity into the overall demand picture in any area they’re in – and not just when it comes to Load One freight but competitors’ capacity there as well. Take a listen:
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