Private fleets lag on IT

According to a recent survey by The Logistics Institute at Georgia Tech, nearly three-quarters of companies with private and dedicated fleets still plan routes and build loads manually. Although two-thirds of those surveyed said software was the “ideal method” for planning truck transportation, 65% still use manual dispatching systems and 61% rely on manual tracking methods.

“What is very clear from this survey is that the majority of companies — those with smaller trucking operations of under $10 million annually, as well as those with much larger operations exceeding $100 million — continue to plan truck routing and loading manually with very limited use of available information and decision technologies,” says Harvey Donaldson, director of TLI.

Not surprisingly, the surveyed companies indicated dissatisfaction with current route planning, load building, dispatching and tracking processes, and 65% said better planning could cut their transportation costs by 6% to 30%. The top three reasons for continued reliance on manual systems were “complexity of environment” (33%), organizational culture (29%) and overhead cost (24%).

Complete survey results are available at www.tli.gatech.edu/resource/transsurvey.