NEW YORK — Transportation solutions provider Transfix on Oct. 6 launched Fleet Planner, the company’s first standalone software offering. Fleet Planner, which complements Transfix’s existing digital brokerage platform, is a free online tool that gives small and mid-sized carriers access to a centralized platform for managing fleets, streamlining operations and ultimately scaling their business.
Small and mid-sized carriers make up a vast majority of the American trucking industry. While dispatchers for small to mid-sized carriers struggle with many of the same complexities as much larger carriers — such as managing driver schedules and preferences, organizing key load information and communicating with drivers — budget constraints have made technology solutions inaccessible, according to a statement from Transfix. As a result, carriers are left with “siloed” views of the business and inefficiencies that can cost them up to thousands per year. They also run the risk of missing loads, hurting relationships with customers, or wasting truck capacity.
Fleet Planner offers these fleet-management capabilities to carriers for free.
The software allows users to organize fleets, seamlessly assign loads (including non-Transfix loads) and quickly communicate load details with drivers. Organizations including A&B Carriers and Delivery Management Services, who were early Beta users of the software, saw dramatic impacts on their operations, including savings of upwards of 525 hours of annualized administrative time, the Transfix statement noted.
“Fleet Planner makes it so much easier to manage my business and day-to-day as a dispatcher,” said Erin Burton of A&B Carriers. “Before [Fleet Planner], I had to search across multiple spreadsheets, documents and apps for key load information, but now it’s all in one place. It saves me two hours per day. I especially love that I can easily send texts with load info to my drivers, right from the product.”
Fleet Planner users can quickly log in anytime from anywhere, with the ability to:
- View fleet: Get an immediate unified view of all in-progress and upcoming loads, with a convenient calendar view;
- Add and assign loads: Add important details for all loads (including non-Transfix loads) and assign to the right drivers; and
- Share load details: Streamline communications with drivers via text.
“Transfix continues its commitment to building customer-inspired solutions,” said Lily Shen, CEO and President of Transfix. “With Fleet Planner, we are excited to give small and mid-size carriers, who keep the American economy afloat, access to tools previously only available to larger carriers. At a time when the market is more volatile than ever, carriers can turn to Transfix to help streamline operations, reduce administrative costs and scale their businesses.”
The Trucker News Staff produces engaging content for not only TheTrucker.com, but also The Trucker Newspaper, which has been serving the trucking industry for more than 30 years. With a focus on drivers, the Trucker News Staff aims to provide relevant, objective content pertaining to the trucking segment of the transportation industry. The Trucker News Staff is based in Little Rock, Arkansas.
