BestENews1218

FIFTH WHEEL
Mandate
impact
still felt
in freight
best chance of winning on the
bottom line. That’s always been
true, but never more so than
today when the challenges are
exponential, from goverment
regulation to yawning gaps between
limited capacity and soaring
demand to wild fluctuations
in the market.
There’s a reason it’s called
transportation management,
after all. Managing
the processes
from
start to finish
requires sharp
planning, constant
preparation
and an
understanding
of the big
picture. This
is where BestTransport comes
in. The company is more than a
supplier of the industry’s leading
transportation management
system. The company is a strategic
partner for its customers.
Check it out
To learn how BestTransport’s
Professional Services
Group can help you
develop a comprehensive
shipping strategy, email
PSG@BestTransport.
Building a plan
It all begins with expertise,
and BestTransport is brimming
with it from all angles of the
freight industry. And no less
important is the company’s approach
to the work.
“We recognize and understand
the value of partnerships,”
said Scott Cummans, president
and CEO of BestTransport. “We
work not only on partnerships
with our customers but also to
develop those same relationships
between them and their
vendors. We are seeking a scenario
in which everyone wins.”
And the company’s depth of
knowledge is an essential facet
of the process.
Best Chief
Operating Executive
Reo
B. Hatfield,
for example,
brings four
decades of experience
in the
trasportation
industry and
a depth of understanding virtually
unrivaled.
“The key to all of it is building
a plan that allows everyone
to succeed,” Hatfield said. “If
we all understand and approach
it that way, we can all realize a
level of success we couldn’t otherwise.
When shippers understand
how carriers operate, and
we understand that uniquely, it
allows them to set up a plan that
ensures a win for everybody.”
And that is the real name of
the game.
much of the cloud associated
with the federal mandate on
truckers to install electronic logging
devices has vanished, but
there are remnants.
Early adopters of electronic
logs were permitted to continue
using existing systems, known as
automatic onboard recording devices,
or AOBRDs, for two more
years. Fleets that chose to take
advantage of that option now face
a deadline to make the switch to
ELDs by the end of next year.
The switch “will probably not
be painless,” Clem Driscoll, president
of research firm C.J. Driscoll
& Associates, said last month at a
conference in Atlanta.
Driven by the ELD mandate,
revenues in trucking telematics
have swelled to $1.1 billion, double
their total since 2015, Driscoll
said. In fact, keeping pace with
demand became a problem leading
up to the requirement kicking
in, according to Driscoll.
One of the big issues will be
in ensuring that the changeover
from AOBRDs to ELDs is carried
off without a hitch, and that
could be a significant challenge.
That does not apply only to carriers,
but to those in the telematics
sector, too. Many of the companies
that have emerged since
the ELD mandate was announced
have failed.
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