Trailer capapcity marketplace Repowr has stepped up its platform with an additional layer that goes beyond analysis to execution.
At its core, the company matches the demand for short-term trailer rentals to the suppliers who need their trailers repositioned or income from idle assets. The company soft launched its new capacity planning and repositioning automation solution called Trailer Optimization Platform (TOP) last week at the Truckload Carrier’s Association annual Truckload convention held in Orlando.
TOP optimizes trailer strategy by layering onto existing infrastructure (it’s not a TMS) to pull daily trailer data, attributes and locations and connecting those insights to telematics. Fleets can then input their forecasts on a weekly, monthly or quarterly basis and set utilization targets, which TOP uses to highlight imbalances across operators’ networks – nationwide down to yard level – and add capacity to the Repowr marketplace.
Repowr Vice President of Product and Engineering Matt Harb said that means no more spreadsheet tracking of trailer assets and less reactive scrambling to reposition trailers, while monetizing excess assets.
“For most networks, repositioning is highly manual; it's spreadsheets, it's emails, it's static dashboards. It's trying to get disparate systems to line up,” Harb said. “When it finally gets to that imbalance, it becomes a problem. It's going to end up in a load out or a reposition, which is going to cost you, on average, $500 before you even account for the time that your team spent doing that. On top of that, the average trailer is sitting idle for about 40% of its life, and that doesn't include the time that it's just being driven around the country to get in position to actually move freight.”
TOP changes that by connecting strategic planning directly to automated repositioning execution.
Operators use TOP to:
- visualize trailer supply and demand across markets and lanes
- set utilization targets and market-specific thresholds
- automatically generate repositioning opportunities for revenue
- execute moves seamlessly through REPOWR’s marketplace, from reservation to payment
Harb said he sat with teams of trailer networks of all sizes to learn how best to design TOP to meet those fleets’ needs. He said TOP helped those partners improve visibility, reduce manual repositioning effort, and make trailer positioning more intentional and profitable.
“Just by using the software, they identified 60% more (trailers) that they could put on the platform, and 70% of those have turned into Repowr reservations, which create revenue for them and gets trailers in the places that they need them to be,” Harb said.
TOP will fully launch later this Spring.
