In order for companies to meet the expectations of their customers and change the standards for controlling freight spend (two things that needed a definite shakeup), a number of LTL trends developed in 2019. Their main focus was trucker and carrier expectations, rates, the needs of shippers, demand, and more.<\/p>\n
Let’s take a look at what trends 2019 saw and what the result may have been from some of those trends for certain companies.<\/p>\n
Mobile Technology<\/strong><\/p>\n Making a huge impact in 2019 was mobile technology. The Uberization of trucking affected many shippers. Mobile-optimized web interfaces and app-based systems replaced standard truckload freight management, quoting, and scheduling methods. Through mobile technologies, companies can further eliminate both excessive freight management and the overhead of big vendor solutions.<\/p>\n Skyrocketing Freight Rates<\/strong><\/p>\n Toward the end of 2018, freight rates began to climb. The response was that shippers had to find a way to do the following:<\/p>\n Evolving processes and transportation networks<\/a> became the methods for eliminating supply-chain black swans and preventing bottlenecks.<\/p>\n How to Control LTL Freight Spend<\/strong><\/p>\n The key to this was through the use of technology. To manage LTL freight spend, automation in transportation was essential. This included integration between the following:<\/p>\n Efficiency was also enhanced in addition to having better control over freight spend.<\/p>\n Talent and Drivers Attracted by LTL<\/strong><\/p>\n The driver shortage needed to be addressed and reducing the capacity crunch seemed like a good focus. The solution: more drivers were needed. Fortunately, LTL carriers attract talent such as the following:<\/p>\n With time, team members at an entry-level can move up and progress to drivers. New generations of talent were attracted thanks to this characteristic. Unfortunately, more drivers are still needed.<\/p>\n Trucker Shortage<\/strong><\/p>\n 2019 still suffered, and continues to suffer, a trucker shortage because the above stated trend takes time to work. Therefore, expanding significantly, the trucker shortage continues to be a problem. The problem continues to be exacerbated by more lucrative fields luring drivers away and older drivers retiring. A wage increase may help, but that’s only the beginning.<\/p>\n LTL Management<\/strong><\/p>\n One part of LTL management in 2019 became capacity crunch measures. In favor of smaller shipments, high volume LTL freight was\/is being turned away by some carriers. This follows a trend of freight turndowns originally seen in FT (full truckload), which commonly realized freight turndowns 8 out of 10 times.<\/p>\n The Demand for E-Commerce<\/strong><\/p>\n In modern freight transportation, a sort of double-edged sword is presented by e-commerce growth. In the industry, it comes at the cost of less capacity, even though it provides a substantial boost to carriers. By the end of this year, a doubling of e-commerce size is expected. For LTL shippers and carriers seeking to find available capacity, this will put massive pressure on both. The demand for LTL e-commerce solutions and a peak LTL shipping season will require more resources, more time on the road, more shipping lanes, and more trucks.<\/p>\n STC Logistics can assist companies with e-commerce efforts through solutions in distributions and rollouts, packing and creating, installations, technology, fulfillment and warehousing<\/a>, global and domestic transportation, and more. Contact us for additional information.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In order for companies to meet the expectations of their customers and change the standards for controlling freight spend (two things that needed a definite shakeup), a number of LTL trends developed in 2019. Their main focus was trucker and carrier expectations, rates, the needs of shippers, demand, and more. Let’s take a look at … Continue reading “Were You Affected by These LTL Trends?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":428,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shipstc.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shipstc.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shipstc.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shipstc.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shipstc.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=388"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/shipstc.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":389,"href":"https:\/\/shipstc.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388\/revisions\/389"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shipstc.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shipstc.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shipstc.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shipstc.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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