Descartes Systems Group, the global leader in uniting logistics-intensive businesses in commerce, announced that the Descartes MacroPoint™ Capacity Network now covers over 1 million truckload transportation lanes in the U.S. and Canada.
“In such a tight transportation market, improving our ability to find more carriers and get loads covered is critical to providing the best service to our customers,” said Perry Faulk, Senior Vice President – Carrier Operations at Nolan Transportation Group. “With the extensive market coverage of the Descartes MacroPoint solution, combined with the level of intelligence and automation it offers, we have a powerful tool to improve our effectiveness at sourcing capacity and covering loads.”
The Descartes MacroPoint Capacity Network helps freight brokers find carrier capacity to cover their customer loads, even in markets and regions where capacity is limited or in new lanes where they may not have an existing carrier network. Transportation coverage is available for more than 216,000 carriers through Descartes MacroPoint Capacity customers sharing their load data. By using machine learning to match potential carriers in near real-time to open loads, the solution helps brokers to better rank carrier matches. Brokers can send load offers to carriers either manually or automatically via configurable business rules that can incorporate considerations such as market indicators, pricing and company preference notifications. Through this use of intelligent automation, brokers have achieved on average 15 times more loads matched than processed manually.
The network also helps carriers improve asset utilization. With an increased number of brokers having visibility into their activity, carriers can secure more loads and, in particular, loads in the lanes that they want to operate. Carriers also feel more confident in responding to Descartes MacroPoint Capacity load requests as they are actual requests from freight brokers as opposed to “phantom” load requests that are just checking the market for capacity.
“Freight brokers are challenged to meet customer demand and maintain margins because of the acute shortage of transportation capacity,” said Dan Cicerchi, General Manager, Transportation Management at Descartes. “We thank our customers for helping us to reach this important network coverage milestone and, combined with the advanced sourcing functionality of the solution, we are making it easier for them to find more capacity and cover loads.”
