Why are the rates never right? (part 1)

What is a lane? I’ve mumbled this question to myself the better part of the last decade. To any I’ve asked this openly either meet me blank or respond with a what do you mean? Point A to Point B. Surely, this gets us our shortest path to an answer. One that should be relevant, reliable, and exacting at all times. This ain’t rocket science. So, why do my rates always stink?

How you define Points A and B end up mattering a lot. Humans, being the good pattern seekers we are, love shortcuts. This is easily exhibited in the “where are you from?” cold open we’re accustomed. Mira Mesa, Poquoson, and Indian Land are all real places I’ve lived. Instead, they are San Diego, Virginia Beach, and Charlotte when we first meet for easier reference.

When I’m listing all previous residences for a loan or other documentation, I’m down to the 5 digit zip. The reason is they are easily indexed to store and use other information consistently. Let’s take Charlotte. The zip 28273 means nothing to most humans but to a database, it can key to the city Charlotte, it’s sub region, state, etc. “The southwest side of Charlotte, still city limits, but on the boarder of South Carolina” has a snowball’s chance getting through an API or GPS.

In transportation, these worlds collide into communication nightmares between human and computer systems. Thinking passing Charlotte as easy enough forgets how error prone and bad of spellers we are. charlote and Charlit are all possible deficiencies in wait. Remember Poquoson (Puh-Koh-sin)? It took me two years to not mix up the uo.

Even being immaculate doesn’t solve if the fact that when you type Charlotte zip code you get 75+ to choose from.

Thus, the beloved local load dilemma. Everyone knows a Charlotte to Charlotte load is at least cow sh*t, if not full on bullsh*t with a 0 mile listing. Some warehouses are down the street, but anything transactional or made for a routing guide has mileage or complication in between. Today the Charlotte, NC to Charlotte, NC is actually South Charlotte to North Charlotte half an hour apart.

This other local Charlotte to the right is having more difficulty for some reason. Higher prices too.

Now we’ve seen the light and are on the right path to using zips over text, only to discover there are some 45,000 zip codes in the U.S. or 1.6B possible pairs. Take out federal land, AK and HI, deeply rural areas down to 30% of the 45K considered and you’re still at 182M pairs. There may be 100M truckloads a year in comparison. This means you will not get a record for every pair every day. In some cases, nothing close for weeks or months.

Nonetheless, we implore there be an exact and relevant price at all times for any pair regardless. We have AI after all. Conversely, recognizing there’s no golden RPM at any time will set you free. Especially if you do anything related to pricing or trucking data. So, anyone reading this far.

The tools for our freedom rely on understanding the whys. I’ll do my best to group them into geography, density, parameter, and time considerations. Part 1 will start with the map. We always love the map. Ensuing parts will cover the rest.

Geography

At some point you just have to make a decision as to what is and is not in consideration for points A and B. Whether it’s by a radii from a request point to a predetermined market-code structure that align to the request. There are different flavors here, and none are generally superior.

It is more important to know the trade-offs. Controlled radii may offer some precision, but are hard to standardize. Key Market Areas have size differentials but may be able to pick up more results in sparser areas. Both run into border issues.

In all cases of a point A and B, by circle or blotch on a map or hexagon or whatever else, there is no true equivalent by nature of having to expand. We won’t get into it here, but the 5 digit zip code itself is on average 90 sq miles, or the equivalent size of Knoxville, TN. No one wants to get into addresses and lat/long level differences. In short, the country is too damn big to be able to be so matter-of-fact for most of us. GOD BLESS THE USPS though.

Results within any lane selection can have mileage differences that can mean a lot translating in and out of a rate-per-mile too. This only gets worse the closer your two points are. Take NJ/NY markets separated by the GW bridge.

The miles may be very short in between, but there are world’s difference for a shipment residing on either side or between them in either direction. And there may be 20x the volume as a local Bozeman, MT search.

Which gets us into the relevance of whatever you’re getting or using by nature of density, parameter, and timing covered in the next releases.

The goal is to move from a passive consumer of data to one who leverages it like one with a Minecraft hammer building their own blocky yet uniquely beautiful ecosystem.

Thanks for reading, see you at the next drop.