RouteMarket, a startup targeting trucking, created a mobile app that serves as a marketplace to help match freight shippers with carriers.
The Arlington, Va.–based company will head to Collision, a tech conference projected to draw 25,000 attendees to New Orleans from April 30-May 3. RouteMarket is one of 10 startups representing Northern Virginia at the event through a partnership between the Alexandria Economic Development Partnership and Arlington Economic Development called NOVA in NOLA.
With RouteMarket’s app, founder and CEO Caleb Royer said trucking companies can handle payment for shipments, monitor their freight through GPS-tracked shipments, and have their freight routes optimized via the company’s algorithm.
“For carriers, every load you pick up is new revenue,” said Royer. “They might drive 1,000 miles and not make a profit. So RouteMarket factors in the operating costs to help optimize your route.”
There are already quite a few large tech companies who serve the big carrier space to help with Just-in- Time logistics, yet these companies already have the capabilities of tracking commerce.
RouteMarket is meant for the small trucking carrier companies who haven’t converted to using this kind of technology.
One reason these small carriers haven’t already started using these tools is because there is an educational hurdle to overcome. Trucking companies are also busy responding to labor shortages and are now “offering thousands of dollars in bonuses to attract new drivers,” according to the American Trucking Association.
Royer brings a background working with autonomous vehicles. He worked as an aerospace engineer for Boeing to build routing software for unmanned aircraft. Yet he still thinks that increasing automation in the workforce won’t make too much of an impact on the trucking industry.
“You will never eliminate the trucker from the vehicle in a hundred years. The way the industry is set up right now, you need a driver onboard just for the liabilities and to sign all the paperwork,” said Royer.
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