“Amazon Enters the Trucking Industry”

Since its inception, Amazon has disrupted nearly every industry it has been involved in, from e-commerce to supply chain management. Despite its humble beginnings as an online bookstore, Amazon has branched out into a fully sized retail giant with distribution centers located across the country. Hungry for more, Amazon is now setting its sights on the freight shipping industry for two reasons. First, to solve the gap between incredible demand from its customers and the supply shortage from traditional logistics companies. Second, to make a profit by leveraging the vast shipping network it has built over the years.

Earlier last year, Amazon quietly began testing its own version of “Uber for trucking,” which pairs trucking companies with available shipments to help complete deliveries and fill seats in delivery trucks. Unlike Uber, the service utilizes licensed trucking companies instead of individuals, but we may soon see that change if driver shortages get worse. Similar concepts, such as load boards, have been around for over a decade, but never before have we seen a company from outside the transportation and logistics industry attempt to fill their own shipments.

To search for shipments, a partnering trucking company can visit freight.amazon.com to access the load board and sign up to carry the shipment. Once the trucking company accepts a job, the driver then receives all the information he or she needs to complete the shipment, including shipment and route tracking, as well as expedited check-in procedures at the warehouse via an app called “Relay.” 

While the general public has been largely unaware of the service, an Amazon representative confirmed that it is nothing new. “We work with many line-haul service providers in our transportation network and have long utilized them to carry loads for Amazon. This service, intended to better utilize our freight network, has been around in various forms for quite some time.”

However, rather than just using the network to source its own needs, Amazon is now opening it to the public as a sort of marketplace for sourcing shipments. On freight.amazon.com you can now find the headline, “tap into the scale of Amazon as we extend our carrier network to give you best-in-class service at great rates.” And if you scroll down to the bottom of the page, you can find a legal disclaimer that Amazon Logistics, Inc. is a licensed freight broker.

Of course, if we are going to call Amazon’s new freight brokerage site the “Uber of Freight” we can’t neglect to mention that Uber themselves launched their own freight service in 2017 called Uber Freight. The service has been quite successful, earning about $125 million in revenue last quarter according to information from Uber’s recent IPO filing. In the IPO filing, Uber also cited research from Armstrong & Associates which says that US companies spent $700 billion on trucking in 2017.

Taking these numbers into account, it’s rather obvious why giants like Uber and Amazon are interested in getting involved in the trucking industry. After all, solving the driver shortage would have a very high economic benefits for everyone involved.   

UCIT 360 View Fleet Camera

Big Brother Myth SOLVED!

Do your employees cringe at the idea of a GPS tracking device and In-Vehicle Cameras in their vehicle? The resistance to "big brother" can be a struggle for employers to overcome and employees may complain about being "spied on" or "a loss of trust." Some drivers may even threaten to quit if a fleet tracking device or camera is put in the vehicle, but if they’re not doing anything wrong, why would they be so upset? Even though drivers are some of the harshest critics of GPS vehicle tracking technology, they actually have a lot to gain.
Read More...

Improve Your Fleet Safety with a DashCam

Would the ability to view the inside of your delivery truck, while it is on the road, give you a better idea of what the driver is doing?
Think of it this way. Every driver in your fleet is a sales rep, company rep, or just a traveling billboard for your company.
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Can Distracted Driving Affect Your Business?

Distracted Driving can impact your fleet anytime, anywhere.

The adverse effect of any one of these can have an impact on your bottom line.

• Higher Insurance Rates 
• Lawsuits Legal Claims 
• Workman Comp Rates Increases 

All these can lead to a situation where you may ask yourself, "How did this Happen".

You may even say that you took precautions by installing a GPS Tracking System, and was told that you could manage your fleet with it. That was a partial truth.
Having a Tracking System can only provide a small amount of data, once you fleet leaves your sight.



Training:
You can do all the training in the world to try and improve fleet safety, then your drivers forgot the minute they leave the yard.
So how can you change this?

What if you had a Live Streaming 3G DashCam install on the front window of your fleet vehicles. 

What if you could ride along with your fleet and see exactly what they were doing.

• Monitoring Texting 
• Cell phone usage
• Bad driving habits. 

What if the drivers knew you could watch them?
Do you think this may effect their driver habits?

What if this Front Window Mounted DashCam came with a GPS tracking suite and cost under $400.00 for the camera.
What if the monthly video package was under $34.95 and INCLUDED the GPS tracking suite.

Well it is available now. Check it out.

3G Dash Camera

Hot Topic: GPS Tracking vs. In Vehicle Camera System

We just returned from the 29^th annual VPPPA conference in Nashville.

A discussion came forward during the conference that we thought was interesting.

GPS Tracking vs. an In Vehicle Camera System

Which has a larger impact on safety?

 We were intrigued at the comments made regarding the input of both systems.

Many companies currently use a GPS tracking system in their fleets, providing a useful amount of data for their fleet’s usage.

Alerts, either from maintenance perspectives or from speeding were all mentioned. Having historical data, where the vehicle was at any given time was mentioned also.

Having the ability to go back and review data was important. Over the past ten years, it has changed the industry. Giving Fleet managers more information than they were ever used to having. It was a game changer at the time.

But is it enough?

Can it be used to throw out a frivolous lawsuit? Can it help retrain employee on driving habits. Can it enforce no texting policies of drivers? Can it ride along with drivers?

Too an extent, it may help in training of drivers, but not as well as a camera system.

And not a camera system that sends you tidbits of information. A continuous camera system gives you the ability to fight lawsuit against your company.  Lower liability insurance rates against your company. Manage driver habits, such as texting, talking on the phone.

It was interesting to have a debut on the pros and cons of each system.

Where does your company stand on this issue?

Are they using a GPS tracking system?

Have they thought about a Camera System?

Maybe it time to look into a system?