Jun 16, 2022

6 Keys Steps for Owner Operator to Navigate Down Markets

6 Keys Steps for Owner Operator to Navigate Down Markets

Trucker Path Launches Dispatcher Service <p><center>Chris Oliver, Trucker Path’s chief marketing officer, announces the company’s dispatcher service on Thursday, March 24, at the Mid-America Trucking Show in Louisville, Ky.</center>LOUISVILLE, Ky. – <a href="https://truckerpath.com/https://truckerpath.com/">Trucker Path </a>is launching a dispatch service aimed at decreasing the amount of office work for drivers.</p> <p>Chris Oliver, Trucker Path’s chief marketing officer, announced the new service on Thursday, March 24, during a media event at the Mid-America Trucking Show.</p> <p>“With Trucker Path Dispatch, we handle all the back-office work so drivers can just concentrate on driving,” Oliver said. “The personalized approach lets drivers determine their lane and commodity preferences, and then we find the loads they want to haul at profitable rates, eliminate forced dispatches, handle the check calls, and also help with finding parking and the best places to shut down at the end of a shift.</p> <p>“It’s that simple. With Trucker Path Dispatch, drivers will experience fewer hassles, earn more money, and get paid more quickly.”</p> <p>The cost of the service is 5% per booked load. Oliver said there are no long-term contracts or subscription fees.</p> <p>Drivers who are interested in the service can submit their motor carrier authority, certificate of insurance and W-9 tax forms, sign a service level agreement and begin sharing their load and lane preferences with a personal dispatcher.</p> <p><strong>Trucker Path Dispatch features include:</strong></p> <p><strong>Load sourcing and negotiation</strong> – Trucker Path says it will find profitable loads drivers want to haul by gathering their preferences and sharing them with their personal dispatcher who is armed with powerful artificial intelligence tools and millions of data points.<br> <strong>Truck navigation</strong> – Drivers are sent truck-specific routes to their Trucker Path application. Drivers also will receive information about pickup and delivery locations, timing windows and any special instructions.<br> <strong>Status reporting</strong> – Dispatchers handle check calls with real-time reporting to keep customers informed without interrupting the driver.<br> <strong>Compliance monitoring </strong>– The personal dispatcher will monitor compliance and offer suggestions on safe places to shut down for rest periods and more than 300,000 points of interest and parking locations.<br> <strong>Digital paperwork</strong> – Drivers can scan and submit trip documents to the dispatcher in order to expedite the payment process.</p> <p>Trucker Path, which is based in Phoenix, offers a mobile app built for truckers.</p> <p>“With over a million users on our app, we have the unique advantage of directly contacting our drivers to ask them what they like and want,” Oliver said. “The features in this initial launch of Dispatch were the top selections. Just like we do with all our offerings, we will continue to ask our community of drivers and continue to build this service until it has all the features they want and need.” <strong>LL</strong></p> <p><strong>Source: <a href="https://landline.media/trucker-path-launches-dispatcher-service/">LAND LINE</a></strong></p>

Mar 24, 2022

Best Places to Celebrate Take Your Dog to Work Day if You’re a Truck Driver <p style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://truckerpath.com/uploads/2022/06/Picture1.png"><img class="aligncenter wp-image-6687 size-medium" src="https://truckerpath.com/uploads/2022/06/Picture1-300x34.png" alt="" width="300" height="34" /></a></p> <p>Just so you don’t find yourself wondering who let the dogs out, this Friday, June 24th is National Take Your Dog To Work Day.</p> <p>It’s a great idea for dogs and their owners…just not great for every workplace.</p> <p>Images of dogs fighting, ripping up the boss’s sofa or relieving themselves in office lobbies everywhere come to mind. Certain workplaces not being exactly conducive to canines do as well. Bone clinics, ball factories, nuclear facilities and operating rooms should be avoided.</p> <p>The worst workplaces to bring a dog to work could fuel an entire season of Seinfeld.</p> <p>And the best ones, could quite possibly transform an industry. Trucking for starters.</p> <p>In an industry defined by long hours, solitary work, depressive downtime and a need for healthy physical activity, bringing your dog to work is a big idea.</p> <h3><strong>Dogs were made for truck driving.</strong></h3> <p>As the commercial says, “Dogs love trucks.” They love being with their owners, too.</p> <p>And the benefits are far, far from one-sided.</p> <p>Over work, loneliness, stress, and an often-hostile work environment are downsides of trucking that dogs are uniquely qualified to alleviate by providing comfort and companionship.</p> <h3><strong>The Big Benefits of Having a Dog as a Copilot</strong></h3> <ul> <li>If you drive with a dog, you’re not alone. (How’s that for alleviating loneliness?)</li> <li>Petting a dog or even gazing into a dog’s eyes releases oxytocin, a stress-reducing hormone.</li> <li>When you have a dog, you have to walk them. (A dog can make you exercise when no one else can.)</li> <li>Who needs an alarm when you have a security guard with hearing that’s four-times as sensitive as a human’s protecting your truck?</li> <li>When motorists see a trucker with a dog, it makes them feel good.</li> </ul> <h4><strong>Key Considerations for Bringing a Dog to Work on the Road</strong></h4> <p>So what do you need to know if you’re a trucker with dog or a trucking company that wants to bring the quality-of-work benefits of canine copilots to their workforce?</p> <p>For starters, some lanes, states and regions are more dog-and-truck friendly than others. Good thing to know, because for all the big benefits of having a pup in your big rig, there are challenges.</p> <p>Driving with a dog can be a drag when truck stops aren’t good for a walk and a pee—or when hotel owners are downright anti-dog. It can be hard enough finding a safe place to pull over and rest—and even harder to find a dog-friendly one.</p> <p>We at Trucker Path crowdsourced our driver pool to find the sweetest spots in the country for drivers with dogs based on two simple criteria: the presence of pet-friendly truck stops and hotels. Here is what we found.</p> <h4><strong>Connecticut is the most pet-friendly state for truck drivers.</strong></h4> <p>Trucks may be banned from its beautiful parkways, but drivers still rank Connecticut the most pet-friendly state. Also, there appears to be no correlation between the quality of a state’s roadways and the attractiveness of its offerings for truck dogs. Connecticut ranks an abysmal 33rd overall according to the <a href="https://reason.org/wp-content/uploads/26th-annual-highway-report-state-by-state-summaries.pdf">Reason Foundation’s 2021 ranking</a> of states’ road quality.</p> <p>According to Trucker Path data, the other pet-friendliest states for truckers are: 2) California, 3) Montana, 4) Virginia and 5) Oregon. No surprise that dogs favor California’s beaches and Montana’s big skies.</p> <p>In a testament to dogs’ easy-going nature, they don’t seem to care that California and Oregon’s rough roads are ranked down there at 45th and 25th respectively in Reason Foundation’s rankings. The places to live the dog’s life for truckers who like good roads and canines who like good hotels and truck stops appears to be Virginia and Montana, ranked 2nd and 11th respectively in Reason Foundation’s findings.</p> <h4>Who would have thought the Northeast was the pet-friendliest region?</h4> <p>Long haul truckers don’t tend to limit themselves to single states, so looking at the regions by pet-friendliness, is significant…and surprising.</p> <p>Congested, with a reputation for being a little prickly at times, the Northeast nevertheless warms to pets better than any other region in the U.S. Tri-state roadways are dog-eat-dog, but their hotels and rest stops make up for the traffic and trauma they bring on truckers through their pet-hospitality. Whether you have a layover while you search for a <a href="https://www.tafs.com/tafs-360-benefits/prodispatch/">decent-paying backhaul</a>, or want to take find out while you refuel, the Northeast is the North Star of pet-loving amenities and accommodations.</p> <p>Other regions ranked in this order: 2) Southeast, 3) Midwest, 4) Southwest and 5) West. Why is the West so passive toward pets while the Northeast is so welcoming and attentive? Maybe the East just needs the calming influence of pets more than the laid-back West?</p> <h4>Experience life in the pet-friendly lane on I-95.</h4> <p>It sort of makes sense that the interstate that defines Northeast driving would also be the number one most pet-friendly lane. If there’s any interstate in America where truckers could benefit from the calming influence of a dog, it’s the I-95. Only the therapeutic gaze of a pup has the power to neutralize this interstate’s road-ragers and the corridor’s constant congestion. It’s a drive that man’s best friend was made for. And maybe not-so-coincidentally a roadway with truck stops and hotel accommodations that were made for trucker-dogs.</p> <p>Trucker Path users ranked the second most pet-friendly lane being the I-10 spanning from sultry Florida to sunny California with miles and miles of desert landscape and pet-friendly accommodations in between. A furry companion has always been a welcome friend on this stretch going back to wagon train days. I-10’s truck stops and hotels seem to understand and open their dog doors wide for pet-owning truckers.</p> <p>If you’re a driver who wants to take their dog to work every day, there are other pet-friendly lanes to consider. Coming in at #3 in pet-centricity is the I-15 (San Diego to Montana and the Canadian border). #4 is the I-90 (Massachusetts to Montana by way of Chicago and South Dakota). And #5 is the I-75 (North-South from Florida through the Great Lakes).</p> <h4>Appreciate drivers by appreciating their dogs.</h4> <p>They say you can tell a lot about a person by the way they treat their dog. The same goes for the way states, trucking companies, communities and hotels treat their trucker dogs.</p> <p>Companies and communities continue to look for ways to show appreciation to the heroes who move our goods. Showing love to truckers with dogs seems like a good way to reach the 40% of drivers who already bring their dogs to work—and the many more who would bark at the chance.</p>

Jun 24, 2022

How Fleets Can Use Technology To Recruit and Retain Drivers <p>On the careers page of FirstFleet’s website, the Tennessee trucking company shares a video explaining its core values with the acronym SERVE. The final E in the acronym stands for “embrace change as a reality of progress," and that includes the evolution of technology.</p> <p>The company boasts its technology to not only attract new drivers but also retain existing drivers, which is important when recruiting, interviewing, training and dealing with costly driver turnover and an industrywide driver shortage. </p> <p>“Holistically, technology is absolutely a piece of the equation for attracting and retaining driver talent. I would not say that necessarily every driver who comes to FirstFleet chooses us because of that. I would say that we do see technology as a supporting component of being a reputable and enjoyable place of employment,” said FirstFleet CIO Austin Henderson. “There has been a long history of transportation companies having technology but not fully utilizing it down to the driver’s hands. If it can make the drivers’ lives better, or their job a little bit easier, or save them 15 minutes, we're going to try our best to make that interaction as efficient as possible. Technology is … one of the primary ways we do that.”</p> <p>While most trucking companies realize the importance of technology – with things like predictive maintenance and trailer tracking to increase uptime, for example – as a business tool to help boost productivity, not as many recognize technology as a way to recruit and retain drivers.</p> <p>“Lord knows when it comes to recruiting, everybody talks about the rate per mile and general benefits, but ‘we care, and we want to give you tools to make life a little bit easier’ seems to get lost sometimes in that message,” said Chris Oliver, chief marketing officer at Trucker Path. “The real key there is to focus on the (driver) side of the equation, making life easier and more comfortable when they're on the road, helping to just make a day in the life a little bit better. So many technologies as a whole focus so hard on the business and the productivity gains that they tend to overlook – or maybe not even think about – what it does for the driver.”</p> <p>Trucker Path offers a mobile app for truckers that can provide the most efficient and direct route to a destination while also showing drivers where the best tacos are along that route, among other features. The company recently launched a new transportation management system, COMMAND, that is designed to enhance driver relationships and quality of life while managing operations.</p> <p>Motorcity, a transport and logistics software developer, also recently launched a technology designed to make the driver’s life easier by enhancing communication between drivers and dispatchers. RELAY is a cloud-based communication platform that provides real-time dispatch-to-driver messaging.</p> <p>“That’s really what RELAY is all about is to modernize the dispatch-to-fleet communication into what I call the modern world, and beyond that, it's more about relationship management and getting the dispatch side closer to the driver,” said Motorcity President and co-founder Bob Stemple. “Historically, there's been this lag between the time you send a message and the time the driver actually receives it. Of course, drivers are on limited clocks, so minutes add up, and it reduces the hours they can drive when they have to wait for either load information or response to questions and things like that.”</p> <p>Stemple said nobody wants to sit in a cold truck in Michigan staring at a box, waiting for a message, and RELAY helps decrease that downtime and increase retention in the process by relieving some of the frustration. RELAY also offers a feature that recognizes drivers’ birthdays and work anniversaries, among other things.</p> <p>“We all know driver retention and attraction is an issue,” Stemple said. “It just seems very basic to me that if you can streamline the communication with your fleet, you're going to have a better relationship with your drivers, and then they're going to be more satisfied than staring at a box waiting for a message.”</p> <p>When Stemple first started working in the trucking industry, Qualcomm was the big telematics player, allowing companies to send messages to drivers with only a three-minute waiting period. But three minutes per message adds up quickly, taking too much time when modern-day technology is real-time. </p> <p>“Those are the spaces that I would love to see technology continue to evolve is how to give drivers back those precious 15-minute segments of their time that collectively, over a 14-hour workday, amount to significant quality-of-life differences,” Henderson said.</p> <p>And that is important to driver recruitment and retention in an environment where tensions are high as drivers focus on safety, hours of service and regulations. So when a trucking company can offer technology to improve drivers’ lives, they should use that to their advantage as a recruiting tool, he said.</p> <p>“A driver’s worst fear is sitting there being detained or broken down on the side of the road. They're generally not getting compensated well, for that … so drivers want the wheels to be turning. That gets into the fact that the driver may or may not make it home for that baseball game for his son or daughter,” Henderson said. “At the end of the day, technology solutions that focus on making the professional driver’s quality of life better is where we need to focus some significant effort.”</p> <p>But Oliver said, if it’s about quality of life, it is important for companies to also consider how much extra work any given technology will require a driver to take on in order to gain efficiencies because it's easy to overwhelm drivers with the vast number of features available to “make their lives easier” that it can actually make it more complicated.</p> <p>Oliver said the ELD mandate was a major tipping point for the industry because it forced everyone to use the technology ubiquitously, opening the gate for additional technology advancements. But companies need driver buy-in to make it work.</p> <p>While most drivers carry a smartphone these days, using technology might not always be an attraction, he said, especially for old-school drivers who are more comfortable making a call than using an app.</p> <p>He said it’s important for companies that choose to market technology in their recruitment to be mindful of the messaging and how it makes the driver feel.</p> <p>But overall, trucking companies should consider marketing their use of technology to prospective drivers, said Ken Van Heel of Motorcity.</p> <p>“I do think that would be a piece that they would use as part of their outreach to attract drivers – that they're investing in the latest technology to bring the most efficiency to the communication and to the drivers’ operation.”</p> <p>Source:<a href="https://www.ccjdigital.com/technology/article/15289785/trucking-fleets-can-use-tech-in-driver-recruitment-retention">CCJ Digital</a></p>

Mar 19, 2022