Schneider is on board with Trucker Tools ‘Book-It-Now’ offering

Trucker Tools LLC, a Reston, Va.-based provider of trip planning, shipment visibility and freight matching solutions, and Schneider Transportation, a subsidiary of truckload and intermodal transportation services provider Schneider, said this week they have made further inroads in their ongoing technology-based collaboration. 

Schneider is now on board with Trucking Tools’ Book-It-Now offering, a cloud-based software platform that fully automates the process of booking truckload shipments with carriers.

Trucker Tools’ officials said that Book it Now functions as a carrier collaboration tool that automates the process in which a trucker or carrier selects, secures, and confirms acceptance of a broker’s offered load. Book-It-Now is the first automated load booking tool that has entered full commercial production and available to 3PLs, brokers, and carriers, adding that it connects with broker TMS systems in a plug and play integration that does not require major changes in process change to take advantage of its automation benefits that, in turn, reduce the variable cost of covering a load to zero.

As for how Book-It-Now works, Trucker Tools said that it accelerates and simplifies the process for how a trucker accepts a load through one click access to accurate and real-time information needed for a carrier to pick a load. When a shipment is accepted and the shipment is booked, a rate confirmation is then automatically generated, with all other shipment data sent to the driver’s smart phone, at which point the driver clicks on the pickup location and gets the shipment.

And when a driver or dispatcher clicks on Book-It-Now, Trucker Tools said the load is then booked and recorded into a broker’s TMS and a rate confirmation is sent to the driver or dispatcher, with the load scheduled for pickup.

In January, Schneider began using various offerings from Trucker Tools in order to support its growing carrier network and freight brokerage operations, including:

• Load Track, which is used by truck drivers in Trucking Tools’ mobile app, and uses a smart phone’s GPS software to continually update and deliver precise location data that is sent from a driver’s smart phone to the broker over Trucker Tools’ confidential and secure network; and
• Smart Capacity Platform, an offering that provides brokers with predictive freight matching tools and real-time, trusted visibility into when and where trucks are available

“Our goal is to be the broker of choice and make it as easy and advantageous as possible for carriers to do business with us. Trucker Tools helps us realize that vision,” said Erin Van Zeeland, Schneider’s senior vice president and general manager of Logistics Services, in a statement. “By implementing more automated options for carriers, we make the load booking experience with Schneider seamless – ultimately delivering the reliable capacity shippers want and need,” Van Zeeland said. “Today’s drivers are tech-savvy; they want smart-phone-based tools designed to make their lives easier. That’s a big advantage for Trucker Tools given the popularity of its driver app with the small and micro-carriers.”