Not bad...but Panther, Fedex and LEA trucks don't show up....not with the Alliance....
Load 1 website?
- Thread starter seekerman
- Start date
Not bad...but Panther, Fedex and LEA trucks don't show up....not with the Alliance....
seekerman
Expert Expediter
Well, I've found that it's a two edged sword. Even though it tells us how many and what type of vehicles are in an area, ostensibly helping us to make move decisions, it also has shown that in just about every area you check, there are an abundance of vehicles. This can muddle the move or not to move decision almost to the point of confusion. Before I read about this feature on Load 1's website a couple of months ago and started using the site for the purposes we are discussing, I depended on my carriers expertise, customer base, and providence for my loads. I just tried to stay in the freight lanes or close. However, since I began using the site, I have found myself often discouraged in finding that there were vehicles everywhere and preoccupied with that fact, which has lead me to make no decision at all in some cases. The preoccupation was becoming an obsession. So I think I'm just going to return to my old way of doing things, accept the facts concerning load availability at this time, and let it go.
The amount of trucks isn't usually what I focus on. I use something similar to John's site, but what I look for is movement.
If there are 10 straights at 8am, are those same ones still there at 6pm. Don't need unit numbers, just the weight they can carry for identification. Not all will move because they may be home, waiting on a gravy run you name it. As mentioned, not all carriers are listed, so I use that in conjunction with our carriers information. Many places on load boards will have truck ratios to freight that give a little idea. Of course if one sees decent loads from a carrier come up in high traffic areas, good guess they ran out of their own trucks.
If there are 10 straights at 8am, are those same ones still there at 6pm. Don't need unit numbers, just the weight they can carry for identification. Not all will move because they may be home, waiting on a gravy run you name it. As mentioned, not all carriers are listed, so I use that in conjunction with our carriers information. Many places on load boards will have truck ratios to freight that give a little idea. Of course if one sees decent loads from a carrier come up in high traffic areas, good guess they ran out of their own trucks.
more tools the better...no such thing as too much information....use it wisely...
A little pinch of this, a pinch of that, throw in some experience, stir up all the information and form a plan..and hope the heck it all works out....that is all one can do...
Or just wait for the phone to ring
John I don't think some of the drivers understand how complex the Alliance network is. As someone who was trained by Load1 to use Sylectus, it is a very complex system at first I must say. It's not a system that you can learn overnight. Many things come into play when you're looking for a truck to dispatch on a load. Trucks that show up in the system may be pre-dispatched on a load. Its kinda like DVA Phil, so you understand what I'm talking about.
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chefdennis
Veteran Expediter
To be obessed with that info on any one information source is crazy...as was said, it is "1" tool..most of the time, i don't even look at that board because my dispatch team does a great job of gettingme loaded when i am sitting with other carriers units and they have been sitting there longer then i have...For the most part I want to know what my position is within a given area against units from Load 1, and how long they have been sitting...and thats it.....and i have that tool available to me also...
Ha! Maybe waiting for the beep isn't so bad after all.
No one understands DVA and that is by design. Artificial complexity creates two classes of people -- insiders and outsiders -- and enables the insiders to tell outsiders whatever they want about how the system works.
DVA is an in-house dispatch system. The complexity you are talking about stems from the freight market itself. There is a lot going on out there that is reflected in the Sylectus software that is used by multiple carriers to share resources (post trucks when they have no loads, post loads when they have no trucks).
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Knowledgeable business operators like yourselves will do fine - others with less experience might get confused by the incomplete information displayed on this proxy of the Selectus board. The large carriers don't post their trucks here because they don't need to and some carriers don't because there's a fee charged to the carrier for each truck posted (at least that used to be the case). The bottom line is the dispatch team needs to know what they're doing and have a good enough customer base to move their own trucks at a decent rate. I guess I'm just an old fashioned cynic that wouldn't want to depend too heavily on this "Alliance" of competitors to keep my drivers busy and profitable.
That is why I said it's kinda like DVA, but everyone can see everyones else's trucks.
DVA is based off points, each truck is given points based on 20 different factors. The first and most important one is the closest truck to the pickup. The concept with DVA (Dynamic Vehicle Allocation) was to get the load covered and picked up within 90 minutes from the time the customer called the freight in. Over the years I have seen less and less quick pick ups as they were called the fourteen years I was there. I don't know if that term is still used at FedEx Custom Critical anymore, as we have been gone from the company almost four years.
I sat in the office in Akron and in Green many times and seen how it worked. With DVA it was very hard for a dispatcher to skip over a truck with that system. I don't if they are still using the DVA system, but I can't see why they would stop either, as I thought it was a great tool like Sylectus is now.
I don't use that board to see how many trucks there are in a given location. Without considerably more information, it's useless. As Phil noted, you look at a given area, see a lot of trucks, and "hope gets dashed". Why does hope gets dashed? Because there is a high number of trucks in a location? Atlanta shows 130 trucks, therefore your hopes should be dashed? What if Atlanta has 185 expedite loads that will need to be shipped out today? Hopes still dashed? Boise is showing only one truck. Yay, high hopes! Problem is, one expedite load goes out today, and the next one doesn't go out until 4 days later.
Movement is what counts, but even that's misleading. One location has 30 trucks, and 24 hours later there's still 30 trucks sitting there. What does that mean? Does it mean no loads went out that day, or does it mean 25 loads went out that day and a fresh 25 trucks arrived in that area? It could also mean that 40 loads went out that day, 25 of which were hauled by truck already sitting there, and another 15 by newly arrived trucks and/or trucks that deadheaded in to pick them up. Then there's the 30 trucks today, and the next day there are only 20 trucks. Did 10 loads go out, or did 10 trucks deadhead home for the weekend, or simply move to another area?
Knowing the number of trucks in an area is useless without also having another 20 or so critical pieces of information to go along with it, and making a decision based solely on the number of trucks in a given area is likely to be a bad decision. It's certainly an uninformed decision, despite how informed you think you might be. For drivers looking to make relocation decisions, knowing how many trucks there are in a given location is little more than a factoid in the absence of considerably more information. On the other hand, for shippers, it's highly prized information.
Movement is what counts, but even that's misleading. One location has 30 trucks, and 24 hours later there's still 30 trucks sitting there. What does that mean? Does it mean no loads went out that day, or does it mean 25 loads went out that day and a fresh 25 trucks arrived in that area? It could also mean that 40 loads went out that day, 25 of which were hauled by truck already sitting there, and another 15 by newly arrived trucks and/or trucks that deadheaded in to pick them up. Then there's the 30 trucks today, and the next day there are only 20 trucks. Did 10 loads go out, or did 10 trucks deadhead home for the weekend, or simply move to another area?
Knowing the number of trucks in an area is useless without also having another 20 or so critical pieces of information to go along with it, and making a decision based solely on the number of trucks in a given area is likely to be a bad decision. It's certainly an uninformed decision, despite how informed you think you might be. For drivers looking to make relocation decisions, knowing how many trucks there are in a given location is little more than a factoid in the absence of considerably more information. On the other hand, for shippers, it's highly prized information.
We hope to do fine but the more I learn about the other side of the expedite business -- that is those who are not or do not run with the major carriers -- the more I realize that for one-truck owner-operators like Diane and me, it's not about knowing everything there is to know about the expedite industry, it's about knowing a little piece of it well.
In our case, we are Landstar Express America BCO's (contractors), driving our own truck to achieve stated business and personal goals. The more we focus on making the Landstar system work for us (and the less we get distracted by remote big-picture topics), the more likely it will be that we accomplish what we set out to do.
Because this year's Sylectus annual conference was held near our Florida vacation house, and because Diane and I would be off the road anyway to vacation there, I volunteered to Lawrence to attend and cover the event for Expedite NOW and EO. I saw it as a learning opportunity and it turned out to be that and so much more.
Nevertheless, this fantastic romp through the industry information park has revealed nothing to suggest that our present plan is the wrong plan.
By continuing to learn more about Landstar and further developing relationships with Landstar agents, we expect to do quite well. That was the track we were on before the conference. It continues to be the track today.
Bravo Sylectus!
Go Landstar!
My message to other one-truck owner-operators who lease their trucks to a carrier is to enjoy the grass on your side of the fence. Those Sylectus carriers are an innovative and enthusiastic bunch, but when you get into their day-to-day nitty gritty, the bloom comes off the rose. What they do and what a one-truck owner-operator does are quite different.
If you want to play with the big dogs, you have to run in the tall grass, and we one-truck owner-operators aren't the big dogs.
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Turtle you are dead on! That is very similar to a conversation I had with the owner of Expediter Services. The information he compiled and had available was great, but if you didn't have the other half of the equation the value was not much. For example if a driver delivers into Butte Montana and sees that the carrier has only moved 2 loads out within a hundred miles in 15 days. Should you reposition??? Well if the carrier only had 2 trucks this is great, what if they had 10? Data is a wonderful thing, but it only has true value if you can quantify it.
Even if you had all the data it is never real time. Dispatchers are looking at customers, offers and boards real time. An area that was slow yesterday may be very busy the next day.
IMHO, that is what operations people are paid to do.
Even if you had all the data it is never real time. Dispatchers are looking at customers, offers and boards real time. An area that was slow yesterday may be very busy the next day.
IMHO, that is what operations people are paid to do.
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