LTL Leaders Make Tracks for the Web

摘要

Less-than-truckload (LTL) powerhouses Con-way Freight, Old Dominion Freight Line, and YRC Freight made headlines when they committed to uShip's shipper-direct spot rate marketplace. The U.S. national and regional LTL carriers that are either live or coming online to the marketplace currently represent more than 80 percent of the annual volume in the $32-billion LTL sector. To understand the story behind the headline, it helps to look back a few decades, when methods of choosing carriers and securing capacity were paperwork-intensive. In the past, traffic managers typically assigned carriers specific geographic areas, and assessed their choices by examining color-coded maps hanging on their office walls. They often kept certain carriers on call for short or long hauls. "Today, technology has dramatically changed the way shippers buy transportation," notes Bill Crowe, senior vice president of sales and marketing at YRC Freight, based in Overland Park, Kansas.