Market Demand

In the current business environment, shippers continue to face challenges like the rising freight costs, truck driver shortage, capacity crunches, and transaction friction whereas carriers business are having adverse effect due to high empty miles, cumbersome booking process, un-streamed communication, and document management with shippers.

About 97% of carriers in the U.S. operate 20 or fewer trucks (while 91% of those operate with six or fewer trucks). As per bts.gov, trucking carried approximately 11.55 billion tons (70%) of all freight worth $11.7 trillion while collecting $796.7 billion in gross revenue to transport manufactured and retail goods in the country. Research firm Frost & Sullivan who refers digital freight matching market segment as trucking-as-a-service says the market to grow to $79.4 billion by 2025 (up from a current $11.2 billion). High fees that traditional brokers offer can often amount to almost forty-five percent of the delivery cost per load. A truck’s average empty mileage can run anywhere from 12 to 28 percent for private fleets, independent owner-operators, and mid-sized/large asset-based carriers. The overall estimation of American trucks annual empty miles is 50 billion miles. $1.82 is the average operating cost per mile in the trucking industry.

Inefficiency attracts technology, so entrepreneurs and investors have leaped into the market with technology-driven solutions. Digital freight matching platforms are emerged to match small and larger carriers with shippers to get goods from one place to another as efficiently as possible. Shippers directly and almost immediately find drivers with capacity to transport their truckload, partial truckload and less-than-truckload freight on the right types of trucks on the dates and routes they need. Improve inefficient processes in the current state of matching shippers and carriers. Shippers get competitive and transparent rates upfront and can track in-transit and delivery details, so they always know the status of their shipments. Some digital freight brokers like Convoy and Uber Freight have started using their truck equipment pools to speed up the movement. They both recently launched fleets of trailers that shippers can pre-load with goods to speed up cargo transfers for drivers and shippers on their networks. DFM enables drivers to upload proof-of-delivery confirmations in real-time. Lengthy commitments are financial risk for both the shipper and the carrier. Digital freight matching helps to mitigate risks because both parties have a better handle on fuel prices, surcharges, tolls, taxes, tariffs, driver’s rates and other costs that they will incur. DFM solutions offer some combination of digital payment, automatic track-and-trace, document management, single pricing interactions, algorithmic pricing, digital dispatch/load alerts to drivers, immediate booking, and communication tools. Load status information to all parties involved in real-time. Various reports like bid and freight reports are generated based on data captured during shipment lifecycle. Various analytics like rating carrier/driver, average saving per shipment for shippers, average empty miles per shipment, etc. are included to use the product effectively. There are three types of players in this space: technology companies that offer DFM capabilities to 3PLs and brokers (Descartes MacroPoint, Trucker Tools); digital freight startups with DFM capabilities (Uber Freight, Convoy, Transfix); and established 3PLs/brokers that are adding DFM capabilities (C.H. Robinson, J.B. Hunt).

It is critical for shippers to increase visibility into their carriers and transportation processes. If proper IT system is not implemented, the result is lack of real-time data, manual errors and proper communication. A system which can help is well worth the investment.

RSI has developed a proprietary application DigiTransport to address the business need of facilitating relationships between carriers and suppliers as well as minimizing risks on a global scale. The market demand for this product will not cease and is expected to steadily increase in the future.

Target Market Demographics

Market by Industry - Target niche market demographics for DigiTransport are all shippers who want to ship their goods from one location to another. Also small, midsize or large carriers (having capacity of more than 20 trucks) can use DigiTransport to enhance businesses. We expect these stakeholders to generate the highest demand for our product.

The potential market for our product is a wide range of companies in various industries, which are looking to effectively onboard, manage and communicate with vendors, including:

• Retail
  Pharmaceutical
  Automotive
  Chemical
  Energy
  Healthcare
  Government

Market by Company Size - Small to large shipper/carrier companies.

Market by Location - Any location globally.