Leaf Logistics launches Flex Fleets to cut back empty miles, enhance driver turnover

Following a pilot program in 2022, freight coordination platform Leaf Logistics has discovered a solution to get rid of 76% of empty miles from unloaded vans driving on the street by coordinating multi-shipper strikes throughout the transportation grid at scale.

Leaf has expanded its product choices to incorporate Flex Fleets, a multi-shipper devoted trucking fleet, to unravel for wasted truck capability, which in flip has decreased environmental affect and driver turnover.

Right now’s shipper-carrier recreation includes firms sending out requests for proposal to a large number of carriers and brokers with the acquired charges ranked and executed so as. However Leaf Logistics CEO Anshu Prasad stated that leads to everybody managing simply their lanes on a transactional foundation as an alternative of by way of contract, making it tough for carriers and brokers to coordinate masses as a result of there’s no dedication of capability.

“We do not see the identical service in use between Johnson & Johnson and its packaging vendor, so the probabilities they’re utilizing the identical truck to ship empty packaging in after which take Listerine out of J&J and get it to Walmart, it simply does not occur,” Prasad stated. “That coordination, or lack of, results in a 3rd to half of the truck capability within the U.S. being wasted on daily basis, and that is simply an enormous drawback for all of us.”

Shippers J&J, BASF and Celebration Metropolis have already joined Flex Fleets, which leverages Leaf Adapt know-how to research information from greater than 450 massive shippers within the U.S. to coordinate multi-shipper strikes. Leaf applies machine studying to match a shipper’s demand profile towards its transportation community to ascertain patterns and membership collectively quantity to cut back fee volatility and save on delivery prices.

With that information, Flex Fleets connects masses to cut back empty miles.

“If we all know that there is three vans a day in April going from L.A. to Phoenix on a schedule as a result of it is contracted, that permits us to attach that load with different masses,” Prasad stated. “Leaf sees different demand with different shippers that syncs up completely and permits that truck not simply to get again however to get again loaded … These community strikes had been arrange at a macro business degree – we wish to name it the grid degree – to see and orchestrate. There are a thousand occasions extra alternatives like this with different shippers than any shipper has internally, so this turns into a type of air site visitors management function for Leaf to play, which leads instantly into the Flex Fleets the place in a number of areas of the nation we see pockets of demand throughout a number of shippers that may maintain fleets of vans and drivers busy over a time frame.”

Flex Fleets provides shippers entry to versatile, devoted service in a number of areas throughout the US with the agility of market contracted freight by permitting shippers, carriers and brokers to schedule fleets months forward of time to lock in capability, which Prasad stated is often 10% or extra cheaper for shippers whereas offering larger margins for trucking firms. It additionally permits the shipper to scale as demand rises with out having to buy or lease their very own fleet; they presently decide to fleets for years and should pay for upkeep, no matter utilization. Flex Fleets improves service asset utilization and brings value efficiencies that save shippers as much as 30% on their line haul prices and get rid of retailer late charges by 99.9% on time efficiency.

Taking part carriers profit from a devoted stream of enterprise and due to this fact finances certainty and constant schedules with out having to repeatedly bid. Prasad stated Leaf is engaged on further know-how to higher have interaction carriers and brokers after they present demand in a sure market.

“We map these areas of want towards the demand image and say, ‘We are able to delicate circle a bunch of demand that may get your vans and drivers again the place you want them,’” he stated. “That is the way in which we begin to construct stronger relationships on the provision facet. We’ve got this distinctive view of demand and the way it flows over time that carriers can use to essentially steadiness and even develop their networks … If they’ve a ebook of enterprise with J&J that they know is theirs for the subsequent 9 months, they’ll extra confidently exit and purchase vans and trailers to develop their fleet.”

Prasad stated Flex Fleets can also be a really driver-friendly answer. It eliminates driver downtime and fleet empty miles (40% of all vans on the street at present journey empty), which in flip helps drivers earn extra. He stated it additionally permits them to work in a most well-liked location in a repeatable capability, offering favorable schedules and assured work and charges for months or years at a time.

“The extra the vans are rolling, asset utilization is clearly higher for the trucking firm, but when they’re rolling with freight, the driving force will get paid extra, so driver pay has truly doubled on this fleet (instance),” Prasad stated. “Not solely that, the drivers are staying house at night time, and that is an enormous software for retention. So the drivers and the trucking firms that we work with, driver turnover is within the single-digit percentages, and in our business it has ranged from 150% to 300% during the last 10 years.”

Sage Freight has seen driver turnover drop from 75% to fifteen% or much less on devoted freight.

“Sage Freight’s foremost precedence is our folks — our brokerage workforce and the carriers we work with,” David Norman, COO at Sage Freight, stated in a information launch. “Entry to constant and fascinating freight is precisely what we wish to give our driver companions. Via our partnership with Leaf, we’ve been capable of provide our carriers high-quality freight, predictable schedules and coordinated multi-shipper strikes that make empty backhauls a factor of the previous.”

Prasad stated Leaf is scaling its partnerships quickly, increasing the quantity of quantity it manages by 5 occasions final yr alone. Its Flex Fleets presently operates in japanese Pennsylvania, upstate New York, Atlanta, Dallas and Stockton, California, with a deployment roadmap for extra areas within the works with present prospects. Whereas there are dozens of alternatives primarily based on density and demand, he stated it’s extra about coordination and what the “community or relay factors of yards appear like.”

The aim is to have Flex Fleets serve all main markets by yr finish, he stated.