Quest for Quality - NATIONAL LTL: Canvassing the nation
-- Logistics Management, 8/1/2008
As John Schulz writes in this month’s Special Report, the LTL sector is truly the Rodney Dangerfield of trucking. Despite the fact that this mode of carriage is practically essential to running the nation’s supply chains, it just doesn’t get a whole lot of respect.
According to several industry analysts, long-haul LTL is considered a mature sector since many are reporting pretty flat revenues across the board. Some of its largest players are unionized, which doesn’t excite shippers. And, like the truckload side of the business, profits have been scant the past couple of years as fuel and other related operating costs have skyrocketed, forcing some to shut their doors altogether.
However, it pays to examine some of the positive elements that will most certainly keep this a vital segment of the transportation industry despite the hurdles it’s currently overcoming. The winners you see in the charts to the right are now offering innovative, responsive, and technologically sound services with operations that are staying one step ahead of shippers’ wishes in many cases.
And it appears that a majority of our shipper respondents in this category are seeing that these new offerings are actually improving service across the segment. As a matter of fact, we’re happy to report that the overall weighted average scores for all three categories improved over 2007.
In the National LTL category we see that the overall average jumped an impressive 2.72 points over last year, signaling that shippers are fairly pleased with overall service in this category. However, since it’s such a small pool of players, only FedEx National LTL scored above the average in 2008, with improvements in its On-time Performance (10.93), Value (8.64), and Equipment & Operations (4.47) scores this year.
In the Multiregional LTL category we saw a 1.54 point improvement in the overall weighted average and four repeat winners from last year’s survey: FedEx Fright, R&L Carriers, UPS Freight, and Old Dominion. It’s important to note that Estes Express and Roadway Express made it back on the list this year after falling just short in 2007. FedEx Freight took a majority of the popular vote, scoring an inspiring 35.89, a 1.14 point improvement over last year. FedEx won the On-Time Performance race handily (11.58), and also took first in Information Technology (4.90), Customer Service (6.05), and Equipment & Operations (4.50). R&L Carriers, however, led the pack in Value with an enviable 9.14.
The Surface Package race has been a two-candidate showdown for what feels like ages. This year UPS just eked by FedEx Ground by mere tenths of a point, making this race almost too close to call.
| National LTL Carriers | ||||||
| On-time Performance | Value | Information Technology | Customer Service | Equipment & Operations | Weighted Score | |
| FedEx National LTL | 10.93 | 8.64 | 4.80 | 5.86 | 4.47 | 34.70 |
| AVERAGE | 9.95 | 8.39 | 4.53 | 5.66 | 4.10 | 32.63 |
| Logistics Management 2008 Quest for Quality - LTL National - Reed Business Information - June 2008 | ||||||
| Multiregional LTL Carriers | ||||||
| On-time Performance | Value | Information Technology | Customer Service | Equipment & Operations | Weighted Score | |
| FedEx Freight | 11.58 | 8.86 | 4.90 | 6.05 | 4.50 | 35.89 |
| R&L Carriers | 10.76 | 9.14 | 4.03 | 5.52 | 4.10 | 33.54 |
| UPS Freight | 10.16 | 8.83 | 4.68 | 5.54 | 4.16 | 33.37 |
| Old Dominion Freight Line | 10.08 | 9.12 | 4.17 | 5.64 | 4.08 | 33.10 |
| Estes Express | 10.13 | 8.94 | 4.19 | 5.69 | 4.11 | 33.06 |
| Roadway Express | 9.91 | 8.61 | 4.52 | 5.60 | 4.03 | 32.69 |
| AVERAGE | 9.99 | 8.72 | 4.34 | 5.52 | 4.03 | 32.59 |
| Logistics Management 2008 Quest for Quality - LTL Multiregional - Reed Business Information - June 2008 | ||||||
| Surface Package Carriers | ||||||
| On-time Performance | Value | Information Technology | Customer Service | Equipment & Operations | Weighted Score | |
| UPS Freight | 11.65 | 9.38 | 5.27 | 5.98 | 4.66 | 36.94 |
| FedEx Ground | 11.29 | 9.47 | 5.07 | 6.01 | 4.47 | 36.31 |
| AVERAGE | 10.62 | 9.21 | 4.70 | 5.55 | 4.29 | 34.38 |
| All scores are weighted. Weighted scores are determined by multiplying the average raw scores by the average importance of each attribute (1= least important; 5= most important). To find the attributed weights for this category, see the introduction to the Quest for Quality report. Logistics Management 2008 Quest for Quality - LTL Surface Packages - Reed Business Information - June 2008 |
||||||
View All On-Demand WebcastsViewpoint: The envelope please...
07/31/2009
