On April 7, Flying J Enterprise Solutions, LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Flying J, Inc., plans to officially release the latest addition to its DriveLine suite of business tools, DriveLine Load Exchange. Developed entirely by Flying J Enterprise Solutions, the new web-based load board service is designed to leverage Flying J’s 250 travel plaza locations to offer a new level of load matching services, according to the company.
“We are live now on a scaled-down beta version with several of our customers, and plan to officially roll the system out on April 7,” noted Cade Mund, product manager for DriveLine.” “It was developed completely by Flying J and is hosted here on our own servers. All the data is backed up here and all the support staff are here to help users.
“Load Exchange subscribers will be able to access the service from any computer, including the web stations at our travel plazas,” he added. “We believe our travel plazas will be a major differentiator for our system because tens of thousands of drivers pass through our facilities every day. At each travel plaza, monitors will scroll through available loads within a 300-mile radius of that location so that customers don’t have to read through the entire database to find good loads nearby.”
Owner-operators and fleets can also request loads from the system, noted Mund. “A driver can also tell our system that he or she wants a load,” he says. “For instance, if I am headed to Houston, I can tell the system that I will be in Houston on X-date and define the type of load I am seeking in general or very specific terms. When a match comes in, the system will send information about that load directly to me by e-mail, via a text message to my cell phone or by a recorded voice message.
“Drivers can also post information about the equipment they operate and any specialized authorizations they have, such as a haz-mat rating,” Mund said. “Then brokers and shippers who are looking for a particular type of service-- say a flatbed carrier who can handle over-sized loads-- can contact the carrier, as well.”
According to Mund, delivering a very high volume of good quality loads along with the information needed to help both shippers and carriers make appropriate choices was one of the goals in developing the new service. “Our notification system is designed to deliver virtually instant match results,” he said. “We want loads to be posted and moved the same day, if desired. To help enable that, the system provides access to current broker credit scores and to carrier safety ratings, pulled right from the SaferStat database. The goal is to facilitate a speedy transaction and also reduce risk for both parties.”
One thing that Flying J Enterprise Solutions will not do is get involved in the load transaction process, according to Mund. “We do not ever recommend that someone do business or not do business with another party,” he said. “If a driver wants to accept a load, we provide the contact name and telephone number to do that and the rest is up to the parties involved.”
The standard subscription rate for Load Exchange is $30 per month per user. Customized integration of Load Exchange with a broker, shipper or carrier’s own system is also available for an additional fee and, like the rest of Load Exchange, the technicians and support to handle the integration are also home-based notes Michael Wadsworth, the president of Flying J Enterprise Solutions. “One of the big advantages of being home-grown is that we are able to really listen to our customers and respond to their needs quickly,” he said. “We can and will make changes, enhancements and additions to the system as we move along.”
Information about Load Exchange is available at www.fjdriveline.com or by calling 800-954-2020.
