A system that grades less-than-truckload (LTL) carriers according to the efficiency of dock operations could help shippers negotiate better LTL rates with carriers. All it needs is shippers willing to share data, said Lance Healy, co-founder and CEO of FreightFacts.

“We’ve got the LTL carriers, we’ve got 3PL [third-party logistics providers],” Healy told the Journal of Commerce. “We need to get more shippers to bring us to a mature value proposition.”

FreightFacts will offer incentives to lure more shippers to its platform, he said.

Those incentives, including no-cost reports, are part of Tuesday’s “soft launch” of the platform, called Shipper Score. “We have users signing up now, and when we have enough companies, we’ll do the full launch, hopefully by this fall,” Healy said.

Shipper Score is part of a larger trend toward more use of data in LTL that is spreading from 3PLs and carriers to shippers. Carriers, for example, increasingly use dimensioning equipment and are pushing for more use of electronic documents.

As the co-founder and former president of Banyan Technology, Healy has been involved for three decades with efforts to digitize and automate more LTL functions.

“Carriers come to the negotiating table with data, and shippers generally don’t have it,” he said. “This could give shippers data and ammunition they need [in contract negotiations].”

Shippers have long used technology and periodic score cards to grade and rank LTL carriers. Shipper Score applies data-driven scoring to not only shippers, but the docks of their vendors and customers, probing inefficiencies that increase costs.

Shippers may not be keen to have their data dissected, but rising LTL costs could force their hand. The US long-distance LTL producer price index (PPI), a measure of all-inclusive prices, jumped 12% from March to April and 20% year over year.

Shipper Score examines 24 metrics, including dwell time, appointment compliance, payment timing, accessorial frequency and damage claims. Those metrics and others directly affect LTL pricing, service levels, and overall network efficiency, Healy said.

To benefit, shippers will have to overcome a deep-rooted reluctance to share certain internal operating data. Healy said FreightFacts will not collect any confidential rating or product information. “We’re really just collecting basic operational data,” he said.

“A lot of shippers are just interested in how their own warehouses are performing,” said Healy. “They may have a dozen or so warehouses, and they don’t score themselves. I don’t know any shipper who tracks truck dwell times at their own docks.”

Looking for‘leverage’

US LTL pricing is rising faster than demand, with publicly-owned carriers reporting contractual rate gains in the mid-single-digit range in the first quarter. That helped push the LTL PPI toward new heights. The PPI was up 16.5% in April from December.

And the stage is set for further increases in LTL costs when industrial demand really kicks into higher gear, whether in the third or fourth quarter or in 2027.

US truck shippers will need more levers to pull as they try to rein in or at least slow rising transportation costs. Better operational data and scores would provide some leverage, Healy said.

“Shippers are curious about blind spots and getting visibility to what’s affecting their ability to negotiate freight rates,” he said, adding that while their own dock operations may work like clockwork, delays at vendor or customer docks may cost shippers.

Some of that information from vendors and consignees will be supplied by carriers or 3PLs.

“A shipper is only half of every shipment, and they don’t often have good visibility into either side of the transaction,” Healy said, with those other sides being suppliers and consignees.