Technology

TQL introduces mobile app with speak-and-search capability

May 26, 2015

Voice search is fast, convenient and helps alleviate typos on small mobile device screens, according to Total Quality Logistics. And now it’s available to truck drivers on the road searching for loads to haul. Carrier Dashboard 4.1 is the first mobile application in the trucking industry with speak-and-search technology. The app, released on May 19 from Total Quality Logistics (TQL), has been in development for more than a year and features an industry-specific vocabulary tailored to moving freight. The goal: save time for drivers on the road and help them find freight more easily, according to TQL.“We are the first to market with a mobile application that allows drivers to search for loads with voice commands,” TQL president Kerry Byrne said. “Technology is a serious competitive advantage. The faster carriers can find our loads, the easier it is for us to satisfy our customers’ delivery requirements.”Carrier Dashboard 4.1 uses a form of artificial intelligence to continuously improve performance, along with recognizing regional accents and filtering out most ambient noise. The more drivers use the app, the better it gets, the company said. And when it’s time to head home drivers simply ask the app to “Take Me Home” and it will find them a load heading back to their hometown. “It’s cool; it did what it was supposed to do,” Marlino Mehmeti, a driver with Planet Xpress said of the speak-and-search feature. “I just told it place to place where I wanted to go and it got me the load I wanted. I’m telling people TQL has a very cool feature.”TQL introduced the first mobile freight-finding applications to carriers in 2011, with carriers using it about 40,000 times that first year. App use grew more than 1,000% in 2014, according to TQL. “We’ve focused heavily on increasing our investments in people and technology,” said Byrne. “And it’s paid off not only in our growth, but in our relationships with the carriers themselves.”Carrier Dashboard 4.1 is available for Apple and Android devices on the app store or Google Play.