As the industry experiments with sustainable alternatives to complement traditional capacity, this pilot will provide stakeholders with valuable insight into the logistical complexities of electrifying freight transportation. It will combine Uber Freight’s expansive network of digitally-enabled carriers with WattEV’s innovative electric fleet and charging infrastructure network. CHEP will be the first shipper to participate in the pilot, prioritizing electric capacity on the Southern California route.

“Our business relies on heavy-duty road transport, which is one of the biggest challenges to transition our value chain to net-zero emissions by 2040, CHEP’s long-term decarbonisation goal. This first electric truck pilot in the U.S., in partnership with Uber Freight and WattEV, is a step in the right direction as we move towards a net positive impact. We are proud to partner with our carriers and our customers as we together scale up electrification opportunities and deliver on our shared decarbonization goals,” said Marisa Sánchez Urrea, Director of Global Supply Chain Decarbonisation at Brambles, CHEP’s parent company.

The pilot builds on WattEV’s mission to develop a nationwide network of heavy-duty charging facilities that will serve fleets of electric trucks. Via the Uber Freight platform, CHEP will be able to book, schedule, and complete loads, track status and load KPIs, and manage paperwork all in one place.

“We are proud to be a zero emission transport solution of choice for Uber Freight and their customers,” said Salim Youssefzadeh, CEO of WattEV. “Combining our transport business and our Truck-as-a-Service model, we are able to use Uber Freight’s digital platform to serve the shippers and their customers with our zero-emission truck routes and services.”

As electric trucks hit the road, environmentally-conscious shippers and customers are turning to electrified capacity to meet their transportation needs and achieve their sustainability commitments. In addition to the benefits of zero emissions and the absence of engine noise and fumes, widespread adoption of electric trucks will decrease the reliance on non-renewable fuels with volatile prices and reduce maintenance costs.

“Electric trucks are finally here, and we’re proud to partner with WattEV to offer Uber Freight shippers even more ways to move freight more sustainably,” said Uber Freight Head of Sustainability, Illina Frankiv. “Electric trucks will have a profound impact on logistics, and we’re excited to build the technology platform to enable their seamless integration into supply chains”

Uber Freight’s expansive network is uniquely positioned to navigate the logistical complexities of integrating electric vehicles into shippers’ transportation strategy. By partnering with EV carriers and charging network providers like WattEV, and shippers every step of the way, Uber Freight is the proven network of choice for shippers and carriers to integrate emerging technologies into their supply chains.

Contact us to learn more about the Southern California pilot and electrifying your supply chain strategy.

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In Q2 2023, we continued to see signs of capacity correction following a temporary surge in pent-up demand last year. Now, amid rising supply chain costs and a softening freight market, shippers are taking a step back to reevaluate their logistics strategies. In particular, small-to-midsize businesses (SMBs) are increasingly looking to adopt digitally-enabled transportation services to better plan and react to evolving market conditions.

For many supply chains, less-than-truckload (LTL) freight has become a primary shipping solution. The LTL method entails multiple shippers using the same truck to move smaller loads. Transportation costs are typically calculated based on the amount of space used, the class of items being shipped, and locations for pickup and delivery. LTL shipping empowers businesses to deliver orders with greater speed and flexibility, as well as save on resources that would otherwise be spent on unneeded truck space and fees.

More than ever, shippers are leveraging LTL to safely, efficiently, and cost-effectively deliver their goods. While tonnage and freight rates have been in consistent decline since late last year, early 2023 saw the LTL rate per pound index rise by 1.1% quarter-over-quarter and 20.4% year-over-year. Demand for LTL is still holding strong despite capacity oversupply across the board. Shippers of all sizes are relying on LTL to make the most of their transportation budgets and maintain a competitive edge in a fast-changing market.

Move LTL with a vast digital freight network

To step up your LTL shipping, look no further. Uber Freight’s LTL solution offers businesses a simple and flexible way to move loads, reduce freight costs, and easily create, view, and pay for shipments directly from a comprehensive Shipper Platform. Shippers can also receive instant LTL quotes from a network of more than 150+ LTL carriers, offering competitive and transparent pricing. Some of the leading carriers from our network include AAA Cooper, XPO, Estes, Roadrunner, and TForce.

Using Uber Freight’s Shipper Platform, shippers can compare quotes across full truckload (FTL) and LTL and choose carriers that meet their needs by volume size, urgency, delivery date, accessorial, cost, and truck type. Uber Freight’s LTL solution can be used to support all kinds of use cases: these include delivering last-mile goods to distribution and fulfillment centers or rural and remote areas, covering seasonal or holiday spikes, or simply moving goods when there aren’t enough loads to ship FTL.

Uber Freight’s LTL solution offers shippers a simple and flexible way to move loads, reduce freight costs, and easily create, view, and pay for shipments directly from our shipper platform. Shippers can receive instant quotes from our network of over 150+ LTL carriers, offering competitive and transparent pricing. Some of the leading carriers from our network include AAA Cooper, Conway, Estes, Roadrunner, and UPS Freight.

Shippers can compare freight quotes across full truckload (FTL) and LTL within a single platform and choose carriers that meet their needs by volume size, urgency, delivery date, accessorial, cost, truck type, and more. Shippers can choose our LTL shipping solutions for a variety of use cases, including delivering last-mile goods to distribution and fulfillment centers or rural and remote areas, covering seasonal or holiday spikes, or simply moving goods when they don’t have enough for FTL at a given moment.

Simplify shipping, maximize capacity, and streamline operations

Moving LTL enables shippers to save on transportation costs—but it can get complicated, fast. The process typically requires multi-shipper collaboration, load analysis and optimization, reliable access to updated documents between all involved parties, and coordination with carriers to ensure that delivery timelines are being met.

For Portland-based furniture company Fully, LTL was the method of choice to ship small orders of office chairs, standing desks, and workstations to customers. But dealing with clunky carrier websites and complicated user portals often resulted in documentation errors, requiring frequent revisions to key shipment details.

With Uber Freight’s Shipper Platform, Fully’s team can now book, manage, and track their loads seamlessly in real time, using a suite of tech-enabled tools to streamline their operations from one central hub. The platform’s load optimization capabilities—coupled with instant access to an expansive digital carrier network and affordable shipping options—set Fully up for success.

In the first month of working with Uber Freight in late Summer 2022, the retailer saved $243 per order, achieving nearly $16,000 in ongoing monthly cost savings.

Luna Furniture, a Houston-based furniture company, also uses Uber Freight’s LTL capabilities and has seen immediate benefits.

“Over the years, we’ve ingrained innovative approaches to distributing furniture nationwide,” says Aaron Demir, General Manager, Luna Furniture. “Along the way, we’ve turned to Uber Freight’s LTL capabilities to support our demands. Of all the companies we’ve worked with, Uber Freight stands out among the rest. They’ve provided user-friendly, seamless technology and features that are essential to keeping our business growing.”

With Uber Freight, shippers of all sizes can collaborate and move goods efficiently, optimize shipments, reduce transportation costs, and minimize wasted miles. To learn more, contact our LTL team at ltl-sales@uber.com and sign up today for an instant quote.  

The post Uber Freight less-than-truckload (LTL) empowers SMBs to do more appeared first on Uber Freight.

“Running an efficient facility is required to keep our business moving forward, and this particular facility consistently underperformed the rest of our network.”

Jeung Un-Choi
Logistics & Transportation Manager, LG Electronics USA

Data-driven solutions

Uber Freight launched a number of tools and features last year that gave visibility into the day-to-day performance of customer facilities. 

In January 2019 Uber Freight released facility ratings, a feature enabling carriers and drivers to leave feedback directly in the Uber Freight app on the locations they visit. Since then, Uber Freight also released our Facility Insights Report (first in June 2019, then in January 2020), a comprehensive look at the data and trends captured from facility ratings left by carriers and drivers. 

Shippers also have access to freight insights, a dashboard displaying key performance metrics around facility ratings—data points that are valuable tools that can impact improvement.

Dwell-time dilemma

Looking at data from Uber Freight’s facility ratings, LG found operations at most of its distribution centers to be healthy. One high-density facility in Georgia, however, was in need of improvement.

This particular site was one of LG’s lowest-rated, with an above-average dwell time of nearly 3 hours. This led to LG working with the Uber Freight team on-site to help implement the right solutions. 

“Our data confirmed the challenges that LG identified: high dwell times, low ratings. We sent a team to walk the facility, and work together with the LG team to identify solutions.”

Sameer Dohadwala
Head of Central Operations, Uber Freight

At the Georgia facility,  LG made the following changes to reduce driver wait times and unlock higher facility ratings:

• Dock Management: Moved drop trailers from outbound dock doors with less capacity and high variability to receiving docks.
• Staffing: Created a swing shift to minimize the effect of staffing transitions during peak periods in the day.
• Appointment flexibility: Instituted flexible appointments to decrease dwell time.

Measurable results

After LG implemented these changes, dwell time decreased by over an hour, and ratings increased by 0.6 points. 

• 14% increase in average facility rating | 3.7 to 4.3
• 38% (64 minutes) decrease in average dwell time | 2 hrs 47min (167min) to 1hr 43min (103min)

In total, the Georgia site saw a 14% increase in its average rating, moving from 3.7 to 4.3 stars, and a 38% decrease in average dwell time, from nearly 3 hours to just 1 hour and 43 minutes. The new average dwell time rests below the widely accepted industry average of 2 hours. This improvement was right in line with what our initial Facility Insights Report revealed: the top reason for a 5-star rating at any facility was speed.

Time drivers saved at the facility after the changes were made? Over an hour. 

The increase in facility rating correlates with another key metric improvement. Loads from higher-rated facilities are booked on the Uber Freight app much faster than from lower-rated facilities. For LG, average sessions—the number of times a load is viewed—to booking decreased from 16.21 to 8.38 after facility changes were implemented.

“We saw an immediate improvement in the facility performance—all captured by the data available in Uber Freight Insights.”

Paul Heffernan
Vice President Supply Chain, LG Electronics USA

The team at Uber Freight was very excited to see these results. They continue to work with the LG logistics team to expand these programs across their network and bring innovation to the industry together.

“Our team was very excited to see these results. We’re already working with the LG team to expand these insights and programs across more facilities in their network, as we look to bring new ideas and innovation to this industry together,” said Sameer.

The post How Uber Freight helped LG improve the carrier experience at a key facility appeared first on Uber Freight.

To address this, we introduced the facility ratings app feature to encourage industry-wide collaboration, empower carriers and their drivers to share honest feedback about facilities, and give shippers the information and data to take action. We then released our first Facility Insights Report 6 months later to illustrate the experience carriers and their drivers have at facilities across the country and also offer potential areas of improvement for the entire freight ecosystem. Now, we’re releasing the second edition of our Facility Insights Report, giving shippers the actionable insights they need to address inefficiencies in their supply chains where it matters most—the facility.

Since introducing facility ratings, we’ve collected over 500,000 ratings and over 115,000 reviews, and shippers of all sizes are leveraging this data to improve their facilities in meaningful ways. In this second report, we see shippers fostering stronger working relationships with carriers through shorter wait times and better facility amenities. This, in turn, leads to carriers giving higher ratings, which leads to faster bookings, more return carriers, and lower accessorial costs.

More changes driven by data

We are also continuing on our mission to enhance the facility experience by releasing 3 new carrier app updates. While booking their next load, carriers and their drivers will now be able to view estimated wait times and more detailed information about facility entrances to streamline their visits. After pickup or delivery, additional feedback options will allow for richer, more diverse reviews.

Uber Freight is uniquely positioned to jump-start facility transformations across the freight marketplace. When facilities run smoothly, the impact extends far beyond a single load or driver relationship – the entire industry moves forward.

Download the full report here.

The post Key learnings on how shippers can earn favorability amongst carriers appeared first on Uber Freight.

That’s why from its first mile Uber Freight has allocated so much time, personnel, and resources to building its network of trusted carriers.

Today, with more than 50,000 carriers and hundreds of thousands of drivers, Uber Freight boasts the largest digitally activated carrier network. And that’s just the beginning. This network of owner-operators and small fleets gives shippers the capacity and the confidence needed to keep their businesses in high gear.

An always-on nationwide network

When it comes to capacity, it’s all about the numbers. Uber Freight posts some very impressive stats when it comes to its network. These are just some of the reasons why Uber Freight has a 99% tender acceptance.

• 50,000 carriers
• 500,000+ trucks
• 500,000 + downloads of the Uber Freight app

But as big as our network is, it’s still nimble. Carriers are searching and booking loads every hour of the day, every day of the year. Thanks to this robust engagement, 80% of our bounced or canceled loads are quickly re-booked through the app by another carrier.

Equally important, anytime shippers need to post a load, they can make it available 24/7. It doesn’t get any more flexible than that.

Ramping up fleets

To bring more fleets into our network, we recently launched the Uber Freight web portal. Now fleets can access loads through desktop or laptop computers using most internet browsers.

The web portal offers all the functionality and ease-of-use of the Uber Freight app. Now, dispatchers can book and assign loads, designate and transfer loads to drivers, and more, all from the computer they use every day.

For the utmost flexibility, dispatchers can switch from the web portal to the Uber Freight app and back so no matter which way works best at that moment, they’re ready to roll.

The end result? With the Uber Freight web portal, dispatchers have improved control of their drivers and loads in the same intuitive interface. This, in turn, provides more visibility and control of their freight operations.

Trailer pool and flatbed

Capacity is more than just a numbers game. It’s also about expanding options for both shippers and carriers.

Powerloop, an affiliate of Uber Freight, is opening the efficiencies of drop-freight to more and more operations. Its single, scaled trailer pool that can be tapped into by carriers and shippers of every size.

After running Texas lanes for more than a year, Powerloop recently started service in California. Now even more shippers can expand their operations without spending money on trailers (and carriers will enjoy more time driving and less time waiting).

Uber Freight can help you add capacity to your operations. To learn more, or to contact an Uber Freight representative, go to www.uber.com/freight/shipper.

The post 3 ways Uber Freight provides shippers with more capacity appeared first on Uber Freight.

To begin a dialogue to drive change across the industry, Uber Freight launched facility ratings to help drivers communicate with shippers about their facilities. Facility ratings give drivers an opportunity to leave a star rating and written comments about facilities they work with on every load.

Drivers can leave feedback on things like waiting times, the amenities at a facility, and their interaction with staff. The benefit for shippers is that they receive actionable feedback about their operations that can be used to plan changes to help become a preferred destination with drivers.

Collecting and providing facility data for shippers

No facilities are alike. And to successfully improve a facility’s operations, shippers need unique data for each location. The Uber Freight platform does just that. We collect and quantify data from facility ratings and make these findings available on the shipper platform through freight insights.

When a shipper accesses their account, they can easily find this information by clicking “Insights” in the top menu bar. Clicking “Facilities” in the left menu bar will allow them to see statistics and feedback for each specific facility that has shipped a load with Uber Freight.

The average driver rating for an individual facility is displayed on the dashboard. These ratings help give shippers a sense of the overall performance at all facilities, either in general or compared to one another.

By clicking on an individual facility, shippers can dig deeper and will be able to see recent reviews. These comments provide insights into what’s working well and what may need improvement. If you are a shipper with multiple facilities, compare the comments. You may discover in the reviews that a lower-rated facility lacks certain amenities like a bathroom or shower area.

But does any of this matter?

Uber Freight’s first Facility Insight Report, published earlier this year, showed that drivers book loads faster at facilities with higher ratings. On average, 18 Uber Freight app users view an individual load at a 4-star facility before it gets booked. But for a 5-star facility, it takes just 9 users to view a load before booking.

Fewer views to book a load has huge implications for businesses that need to move loads quickly— especially when capacity is tight across the freight market.

And the most important thing to those drivers leaving ratings? Getting back on the road quickly. Within the insights feature, you’ll also find stats around on-time performance, a carrier’s average time spent at the facility, and detention spend. Pay attention to this data as it can help you get a sense of what timing is like at an individual facility

Facility ratings is just one of the ways Uber Freight strives to make the freight industry better for carriers and shippers alike. Learn more about our freight shipping services.

The post How freight insights gives shippers a data edge appeared first on Uber Freight.

Three key factors drive Uber Freight’s high acceptance rate: automation, flexibility, and a growing carrier network. These factors help ensure that no matter the market conditions, shippers will have the capacity they need to keep factories producing and shelves stocked.

Technology accelerates acceptance

For much of the freight industry, daily operations remains a manually intensive process, which can negatively affect acceptance rates. Part of the Uber Freight mission is to modernize this aspect of the industry with intuitive, yet powerful automation. Solving logistics problems with technology is something our company was born to do.

During peak booking times in the workweek, manual processes like making phone calls and sending faxes may limit how many loads can be accepted. The Uber Freight platform was built to automate as much of the booking process as possible. Instant quotes, for example, are available with just a few clicks. This and other automated features enable shippers to increase the tempo of their daily operations more smoothly.

Automation also increases acceptance during non-peak hours. Because the Uber Freight platform is always available, day or night, there is no personnel crunch for booking loads during off-hours, weekends, or holidays. In the event a customer needs support, we provide it 24/7 through our customer service center.

Responding to market conditions

Flexibility is a key part of Uber Freight’s effectiveness for shippers. Our platform was designed to make it easy for them to tailor services to their operational needs. Industry-leading tools like lane explorer increase a shipper’s ability to find capacity and market efficiencies by previewing and booking rates up to 14 days in advance.

Unlike asset-based carriers who locked into specific personnel and equipment limitations, Uber Freight is able to scale to meet a shipper’s needs with less friction.

Carrying the load

The Uber Freight nationwide carrier network is the final key ingredient to our high acceptance rate. This growing network of vetted carriers delivers a deep reservoir of dry van and reefer capacity for shippers for lanes across the lower 48 states. Currently, our network has over 36,000 active carriers, resulting in a combined total of more than 400,000 drivers.

Uber Freight is ready to use innovation and unmatched logistics experience to help move the freight industry forward. If you’d like to expand your capacity for results, sign up for Uber Freight today.

The post The 3 factors driving Uber Freight’s 99% tender acceptance rate appeared first on Uber Freight.

IPP Benelux is a major pallet pool company located in the Netherlands. Every year they ship approximately 40 million rental pallets across Western Europe. After the pallets are used in a shipment, they are gathered from tens of thousands of collection points and redistributed from one of its 61 service centers.

With this enormous shipping volume, moving loads efficiently and predictably are major priorities for success.

When Uber Freight launched in Europe, Mark Hulland, operations manager at IPP, was eager to learn more about the company’s ground-breaking logistics innovations. “New technologies give us the ability to talk to people quicker, to connect with people quicker, and be able to service our customers quicker,” he said.

Accessing new opportunity

Europe’s complex supply chains are very demanding. As a vital supplier to companies across the continent, IPP needs first-class delivery and recovery of its pallets. Uber Freight gives them a new level of capacity as well as real-time pricing to help meet these goals.

And that is just the beginning for Mark. By looking at Uber Freight loads across certain geographic areas, he pinpoints new possibilities for IPP. “Uber Freight is able to connect to lanes that we might not have thought about before,” he said.

Thanks to Uber Freight’s capacity and transparency, the collaboration with IPP is off to a powerful start. “The results from working with Uber Freight [are] always improving,” he said. “We’ve seen different changes not only through acquisition but also through growing new markets.”

Advancing corporate goals

A core mission at IPP is to reduce its impact on the environment. “Sustainability is in the DNA of the entire organization,” said Frans Colthoff, communications manager at IPP. You can see this in the construction of their reusable pallets, which are specifically built for a 10-year lifecycle.

Limiting the number of empty miles on loads is a major priority for lowering their carbon footprint. Uber Freight helps them maximize their loads with growing access to capacity. The end result is that they can plan their loads more holistically. “That is the essence of pallet pooling—efficiency, sustainability,” said Frans.

The launch of Uber Freight in the Netherlands and Germany creates new avenues for carriers and shippers to achieve their goals. Sign up here to get started.

The post Uber Freight helps IPP’s mission of sustainability through shipping appeared first on Uber Freight.

Through this integration, MercuryGate can provide their users instant visibility into Uber Freight’s real-time pricing and guaranteed capacity for their freight lanes, right in their existing routing guides within MercuryGate. These rates—based on data from Uber Freight’s extensive carrier network of over 400,000 drivers and proprietary pricing algorithms—move in accordance with market dynamics. This data on transparent market conditions can help logistics executives estimate and compare freight cost savings in advance of booking, directly within their existing MercuryGate system and workflow. Users can price and tender loads immediately, spending less time looking for prices and capacity and more time and energy delivering value to their customers and improving their bottom line.

“Shippers need reliable information to drive speed and efficiency in their 24/7 operations,” said MercuryGate President & CEO Joe Juliano. “By tapping into Uber Freight’s trusted carrier network, customers of all sizes can realize the benefits of a digital freight marketplace with access to real-time pricing and a vast network of available carriers and guaranteed capacity.”

Uber Freight continues to partner with leading TMS providers, to bring dependable load coverage to shippers any hour of the day, 7 days a week.

Learn more about the partnerhip and get started here.

The post Uber Freight announces partnership with TMS provider MercuryGate appeared first on Uber Freight.

Thanks to the Uber Freight platform for shippers, you can share shipment locations with just a few clicks. Similar to the tracking links customers receive after making an online purchase, you can provide a link to a custom dashboard that shows the real-time load location.

This feature has the potential to eliminate numerous phone calls for shippers—inbound calls asking for a load status, outbound calls to carriers for details, and return calls to the requester to relay the status. Sharing shipments simplifies your day, all while providing greater transparency.

To see how easy it is to take advantage of this feature, check out this brief how-to guide.

Sharing shipment location

Step 01. Open Uber Freight platform for shippers

From your list of loads, choose the one you would like to share shipment information. Please note that you can create a link for a load at nearly any stage—Finalizing Details, Driver Assigned, At Origin, En Route, and At Destination.

Step 02. Click “Share Shipment”

Once you’ve clicked on your chosen load, click on the “Share Shipment” button on the bottom right portion of the map. A pop-up window will open.

Step 03. Copy link

To enable sharing shipment information for this load, click the “Link sharing enabled” button on the pop-up. Click on the “Copy” button to add a URL to your clipboard. Click the “x” in the top right corner to close the window.

Step 04. Send URL

You can send the URL by either email or text message. Paste the URL into the body of the email or text message and add any required instructions for the recipient.

When a user clicks on the “Shared Shipment” link you have created, it will open their default web browser and display a dashboard exclusive to that load. The truck is indicated by a blue ball. This link is good for the entire trip, so recipients can come back for updates as often as needed.

The dashboard also shows other data about the load—current status, load numbers, and information for pickups and dropoffs. Pricing and other sensitive information will not be shown.

Transparency made easy

Uber Freight is on a mission to make the freight world visibly better for carriers and shippers. If you’re ready to have more insight and control, start shipping with Uber Freight today.

Learn more about freight tracking. 

Screenshots shown for illustration purposes only. Actual prices may vary.

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