Do carriers have short-term memories in tight freight markets?

Elephants or goldfish? 当货运市场的力量变化时，托运人和承运人都说“欧冠冠军足彩有很长的记忆”. When capacity gets tight, however, it is carriers who most resemble goldfish. They tend to have short memories and behave opportunistically, according to research by the MIT Center for Technology & Logistics (MIT CTL).

2020年11月，麻省理工学院CTL研究团队发表了一篇基于货运交易大数据集分析的论文. 一个结论是，在一个疲软的市场中，强大的发货-运营商关系并不能预测运营商在下一个紧张周期中的表现.

当市场在2018年第四季度左右并持续到2020年第一季度时，托运人努力维持关系, 在2020年下半年市场趋紧的时候，我本以为运营商会表现出更多的忠诚度. Capacity is now as tight as it’s ever been, according to a recent report by CCJ.

Isolating behaviors
The dataset the MIT CTL researchers analyzed had more than 1.第三方物流公司提供的900万干货车卡车货运交易. 这些交易发生在2015年9月至2019年5月，包括71个托运人提供的货物,650 contracted carriers.

研究生助理和博士生Angela Acocella领导了这项研究，并将托运人-承运人关系的强度与一个单一变量分离——承运人的负载接受率.

Shipper contracts generally do not require that carriers accept all load offers. They only set agreements for lanes and pricing. When markets tighten, 运营商往往会拒绝更大比例的预先商定的合同费率.

Angela Acocella, graduate assistant to the MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics, and PhD candidate.这项研究寻找的证据是，在接下来的紧张时期，承运人会回报托运人的忠诚, in terms of load acceptance rates, after they were paid comparatively high freight rates in soft freight markets.

The MIT CTL paper cites a body of research that shows for-hire truckload carriers, on average, accept about 72% of load offers from shippers for contracted lanes, 当合同承运人拒绝货物时，托运人使用现货能力完成6%的货物. The average rates in the spot market generally exceed contract prices by 23 to 35%.

研究人员使用统计模型来找出当市场环境从疲软到紧缩时，托运人和主要承运人遵守货运合同的程度. 分析表明，托运人良好的软市场行为对紧俏市场时期承运商的接货率没有显著影响.

在2017年第三季度左右，货运市场从疲软到紧张的平均每周装货接受率, for example, was 81.9%. The acceptance rate fell to 68.5% when the market changed from tight to soft around Q4 of 2018. 与此同时，每船每周平均费用在这些期间从1 156美元增加到1 420美元.

Looking beyond price
麻省理工学院的CTL研究发现，当市场吃紧时，价格并不是帮助托运人提高装载接受率的唯一工具. 提供更稳定的货运量和订单交货期的托运人也获得了成功. 根据对卡车运输公司的采访，研究人员发现交货时间的最佳时间是在提货前三天.

Additionally, 欧冠冠军足彩的反应是提高货物的接受率，减少了提货和送货地点的延误, which helps carriers boost profits and retain drivers.

The MIT CTL study did not have data from 2020, but Acocella told CCJ that she expects that results, for load acceptance rates and other variables, would be “what typically happens during hot markets,” with some anomalies expected due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

For the past year, 大多数托运人一直试图通过“更频繁地更新他们的价格”来确保他们的价格保持竞争力, doing more mini bids, and making sure they were changing behaviors to follow the market,” she said.

大型货运公司往往能更好地免受市场的影响，并与运营商保持更好的关系，因为它们可以为运营商提供更多的业务量和一致性, Acocella noted.

As a top performing Walmart carrier, Baylor Trucking was able to expand its relationship in 2020 by 58.在沃尔玛的干式、冷藏和综合货运网络的载货量中占5%.

With capacity tight, shippers and freight brokers are making it for carriers to do business with them. Shown here is the sales floor of Austin, Texas-based Arrive Logistics. Baylor Trucking has been recognized as a Carrier of the Year by Walmart four times, and in 2021 received its second consecutive award as Diversity Carrier of the Year. 该奖项授予表现最好的女性第三方物流公司, minority or veteran-owned company.

尽管在COVID-19大流行期间，对该公司服务的需求出现了前所未有的激增，但贝勒货运公司仍坚持按合同价格和车道承诺收费, said Cari Baylor, president of the Milan, Ind.-based fleet.

贝勒说:“在美国最需要欧冠冠军足彩的时候，欧冠冠军足彩能够发展与沃尔玛的关系。. “We always want to do the right thing. 对欧冠冠军足彩来说，这意味着遵守欧冠冠军足彩对客户的车道和价格承诺，并确保欧冠冠军足彩的专业司机永远知道欧冠冠军足彩在那里支持他们.”

Going forward, Acocella表示，托运人在谈判未来合同时，将要求承运人在价格上做出让步, since 2020 and 2021 have blown their transportation budgets out of proportion. This comes with tradeoffs, however.

“试图从2020年开始削减预算的托运人可能会选择价格更低的选择, and maybe not see the performance they are expecting to see,” she said.

A broker’s perspective
Freight brokers are also dealing with the impacts of tight capacity in the freight market. 这导致了新的战略和技术，使运营商更容易与他们做生意.

“[Carriers] have to want to work with you. It has to be easy to do business,” said Justin Frees, chief capacity officer of Arrive Logistics, a fast-growing freight broker based in Austin, Texas. “If it is not seamless, easy and efficient they can go somewhere else.”

Arrive Logistics最近增加了一个门户网站，供承运人预订货物和提供优惠，以简化货运交易.Arrive Logistics最近添加了一个新的Carrier EDGE在线货运门户，具有“立即预订”功能，使其核心承运人能够立即预订货运. Carriers also have the 选择使用“提供一个报价”功能提交一个替代，更优惠的价格完全在线.

该公司还通过与主要货运市场的整合，预订了它现在的功能.

“欧冠冠军足彩正努力打造一个平台，让所有人与欧冠冠军足彩做生意都更容易、更高效,” said Michael Senftleber, chief technology officer at Arrive.

Arrive also recently integrated with Triumph Pay’s payment processing platform. 任何想要使用快速支付的运营商都可以通过凯旋支付的平台获得为期两天的2%的费用, 与其他托运人和与他们做生意的货运经纪人的应收账款的可见性.

“This is another place for us to meet carriers where they are,” Frees said of the Triumph Pay integration.

Photo Credit: CCJ, original article published here: http://www.ccjdigital.com/business/article/15065663/how-do-carrier-behaviors-change-in-hot-freight-markets