Episodes
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This week’s guest is Ben Steffes, Vice President, Solutions & Strategy, Managed Transportation, at RXO. Ben was last on the Freightvine 3 years ago when he had just published a white paper on Logistics KPIs for Coyote. RXO acquired Coyote in the fall of 2024, so this time we talk about the RXO white paper on Logistics KPIs that Ben recently authored as a follow-up to and expansion of the 2022 study. In our conversation, we discuss changes in how logistics performance was measured during the pandemic and now post-pandemic, how shippers, carriers, and brokers have aligned on important metrics, and the impact of the increasing use of technology like AI and control towers. We also touch upon strategies for shippers to become "shippers of choice," and on the evolving role of brokers and the dynamics of consolidation in the logistics industry. It was a pretty wide ranging conversation covering different aspects of freight transportation.
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This week’s guest is Dr. Josue Velazquez Martinez. Josue is a Research Scientist at MIT’s Center for Transportation & Logistics and is also the Director of MIT's Sustainable Supply Chain Lab. In our conversation, we discuss his lab's focus on environmental and social sustainability within supply chains. Josue describes the lab's work on the sustainability of freight transportation, emphasizing the need for diverse decarbonization strategies and better measurement of scope three emissions. Also, we discuss the annual State of Supply Chain Sustainability report, co-published with the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP), that tracks trends in corporate sustainability efforts.
Additionally, Josue introduces the Low Income Firms Transformation (or LIFT) Lab that he also leads. The LIFT Lab empowers Latin American and Caribbean micro-retailers and micro-restaurants (also known as nanostores) by enhancing their supply chain management skills and developing and deploying AI driven technology to improve their business operations. The ultimate objective of the LIFT Lab is to alleviate poverty in these regions.
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Missing episodes?
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This week’s guest is Kary Jablonski, VP & GM, Broker Growth & Trucker Tools at DAT Freight & Analytics. As her title implies, Kary previously led Trucker Tools before its acquisition by DAT at the end of 2024. Our conversation centers on her path to the freight industry, her experiences transforming Trucker Tools into a leading visibility and tracking solution for freight brokerages, and the company's subsequent acquisition by DAT. Kary shares insights on the evolution of Trucker Tools as well as the dynamics of the freight technology market including consolidation and the role of technology like AI. Finally, the conversation touches on broader industry trends such as the relationship between brokers, carriers, and shippers, and the balance between contract and spot freight.
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This week’s guest is Mike Roeth, Executive Director of the North American Council for Freight Efficiency or NACFE. NACFE has been around for over 15 years - originating from a workshop run by the Rocky Mountain Institute in 2009. Their objective is to drive the development and adoption of efficiency enhancing, environmentally beneficial, and cost-effective technologies, services, and operational practices in the movement of goods across North America. Mike has been leading NACFE in these efforts pretty much since its inception. In the conversation, Mike discusses the concept of the “Messy MIddle” - a term that NACFE introduced to the industry. The Messy Middle is the period between the trucking industry transitioning from a well established and known technology (that would be diesel internal combustion engines) to a future technology (zero emission battery electric vehicles). Major technology transitions are never simple or clean, and NACFE recognizes this and analyzes how different powertrain technologies (to include Renewable diesel, Biodiesel, Natural Gas, Green Hydrogen, and battery electric) can be employed to bridge this middle ground. In the podcast, Mike discusses how different trucking operations (payload, duty cycle, required range) are better suited to different powertrain technologies, highlights the challenges and hurdles to the adoption of these powertrain technologies, and outlines the roles that the various stakeholders play.
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This week’s guest is Bobby Holland, Vice President and Director, Freight Business Analytics, at US Bank. US Bank has been around since 1863 and is currently the 5th largest bank in the United States. They also process over $40B in freight payments each year. In our conversation, Bobby explains his unexpected entry into the trucking industry and the incredible reliance everyone has on it. He also discusses how US Bank’s Freight Payment Index provides data-driven insights into freight trends at the national and regional levels and utilizes a "same-source sales" type algorithm to ensure data accuracy. The conversation also touches on challenges and importance of data integration, quality, and governance. Finally, Bobby discusses future plans for the index, including incorporating more transportation modes and using AI for predictive analytics.
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This week’s guest is Jerrod Mounce, Vice President of Energy & Sustainability at JB Hunt. Our conversation focuses on JB Hunt’s sustainability initiatives and the broader landscape of alternative fuels in trucking. Jerrod discusses his 26-year career at JB Hunt, detailing his shift from operations to a focus on fuel efficiency and sustainability. He highlights the complexities of fuel surcharge programs and JB Hunt's commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions intensity by 32% by 2034. The conversation explores the challenges and opportunities in transitioning to alternative energy platforms, such as electric and natural gas, and the importance of a "polyfuel" approach. Jerrod emphasizes the need for technological advancements in battery technology, considering economic factors, and achieving carbon reduction targets. Finally we discuss the role drivers and technology play in fuel efficiency.
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This week’s guest is Matt McLelland, VP of Sustainability and Innovation at Covenant Logistics Group.
In our conversation today we discuss the connection between sustainability and innovation, the potential impact of emerging technologies, and the paroles of overly prescriptive regulations. We also talk about the pros and cons for alternative fuels. Matt makes a strong case for having regulations that encourage innovation in a variety of different energy platforms, rather than dictating a single one. All shippers, carries, and brokers can learn from this conversation.
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This week’s guest is Ian Jefferies, President and CEO, Association of American Railroads.
Ian has been with the AAR for over 10 years taking over as President in 2019. Ian was last on the Freightvine in February 2023 and obviously a lot has happened since then. In the conversation, Ian talks about the long term effect of the 2022 Railroad Labor Dispute, how the rail industry is currently evolving, and where it is heading over the long-term. He discusses the challenges of adopting new technologies that improve both safety and efficiency in a highly unionized and regulated industry and finishes up discussing cybersecurity noting the critical role that railroads play in the national infrastructure.
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This week’s guest is Andrew Petrisin, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Multimodal Freight in the U.S. Department of Transportation and the creator of the USDOT’s Freight Logistics Optimization Works or FLOW. FLOW is a public private partnership whereby different players in the global supply chain share previously unshared commercial data to better understand changes in international freight flows. These data are securely anonymized and harmonized within the platform and the results are available for the members to use in their analysis. Created and launched by Andrew just over three years ago during the depths of the massive containership backlogs in West Coast ports, FLOW is now a well-established source of freight flow data as well as a consortium of almost 100 supply chain partners ranging from port operators, ocean carriers, trucking companies, railroads, freight brokers as well as manufacturers, retailers, and distributors. In our conversation we discuss the importance of being a neutral trusted party and how trust is earned (hint - consistency over time), how different companies are using FLOW both strategically and tactically, and the challenges of getting so many private sector organizations (to include competitors) to contribute detailed data.
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This week’s guests are my two DAT iQ colleagues: Ken Adamo, Chief of Analytics, and Dean Croke, Principal Analyst. This is our annual end of the year podcast where we revisit our predictions from last year, discuss the major issues of the current year, and take our best guesses as to what will happen next year. As always our conversation ranged wide - to include the continued soft market of 2024, challenges of current air travel, predictions of a rising market in 2025, the impact of the election, and the misery of being an Ohio football fan. Our predictions from 2023 for the spot market were pretty much dead on - while our contract forecasts were slightly off the mark.
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This week’s guest is Rob Haddock the recently retired Group Director of Planning & Logistics at Coca-Cola North America. In his retirement, Rob has started a new firm (Albedo Logistics), begun consulting projects on the side, and written a book!
I asked Rob to join me on the Freightvine to discuss his book, titled, Transportation Adventures of a Food Shipper: A Shipper’s Guide to Truckload Transportation - The Sapient Shipper Adventures. Rob has distilled his almost 40 years of experience in the freight trucking and supply chain industry and instilled it into his book. In our conversation, we talked about how transportation executives should communicate up to their C-suite, the importance of having intellectual curiosity and willingness to ‘break things’, and the need for an organizational ‘plan on a page’ to act as a north star to guide strategy and actions. Rob also discussed how he believes that Artificial Intelligence is akin to Iron Man’s AI equipped suit, J.A.R.V.I.S., in that it can make an executive or manager be better and smarter at their job. Not as a replacement.
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This week’s guest is Kevin Zweier, Vice President of Transportation Practice at NTT, formerly Chainalytics. Long term listeners might recall that Kevin has actually been on the Freightvine 3 times: pre-pandemic in 2019, during the pandemic in 2021, and in the post pandemic in 2022. Now that we are apparently ending the pandemic induced TL market cycle, it is time to bring him back again to talk about how shippers’ TL Procurement strategies are, or should be, changing.
During our conversation, we discuss the current TL market cycle, the impact of low lane volume strategies on the RFP process, and how shippers are taking risk off the table when it comes to bids. Finally, we debate whether it is better to expand or contract a carrier base as the market starts to turn inflationary. It is always a great time to talk with one of the leading experts in freight transportation.
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This week’s guest is Tim Denoyer, VP and Senior Analyst at ACT Research. Tim has been a financial analyst covering the transportation space for pretty much his entire career. At ACT Research, he is the lead analyst in their transportation research effort and is the primary author of the ACT Freight Forecast, U.S. Rate and Volume Outlook. In our conversation, we talked about the current state of the TL market, the rise of private fleets, and why he views it as “revolutionary change at an evolutionary pace.” We also discuss automation versus Artificial Intelligence and the lag in productivity gains following the implementation of any technological innovation.
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This week’s guests are Chad Kennedy, Senior Product Manager at DAT, and Samuel Parker, Associate Director Shipper Segment at DAT. Chad and Samuel hosted and ran the most recent Shipper Summit in Kansas City, which had close to 100 shipper customers. As the kick-off event of DATCON each year, the Shipper Summit is an invitation-only, shipper-only event that features expert panels on procurement and transportation management as well as a forum for peer-to-peer discussion on a variety of pertinent topics. The following two days of DATCON featured speakers and discussions on a range of topics from AI to cybersecurity. In this episode, Chad, Samuel, and I discuss the highlights of the Shipper Summit and DATCON and share the key takeaways from this unique event.
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This week’s guest is Dr. Erika Voss, Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) at DAT. Erika joined DAT earlier in 2024 as our first CISO coming from a long career in security and risk at companies such as MicroSoft, Salesforce, Oracle, and CapitalOne. In her role, she is really changing the game in cybersecurity for the entire trucking transportation industry. Erika explains that the types of fraud and theft that occur in our industry are all essentially cybersecurity issues. Interestingly, the introduction of greater digitalization of operations, while greatly increasing efficiency, has a dark side in that it opens the door for potential cybersecurity breaches. In our conversation, we discuss the concepts of each person’s ‘identify fabric,’ how the ‘attack landscape’ for companies has expanded dramatically over the past several years, what ‘zero-trust’ transportation with continuous authentication might look like, and exactly what a ‘script kiddy’ is. Finally, we talk about how a shipper should include cybersecurity capabilities as part of their carrier and broker vetting for any RFPs. As shippers, carriers, and brokers continue to automate and digitize various functions, the importance of cybersecurity is only going to increase.
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This week’s guest is Bill Cassidy, Senior Editor for Trucking and Domestic Transportation at the Journal of Commerce. Bill has been covering transportation for over 30 years writing and editing at Fleet Owner, Transport Topics, Traffic World, and now for the last 10+ years at the JOC. He has a great perspective on all things freight. In our conversation we discuss the potential impact on the transportation industry of different events to include the Federal Reserve recently voting to lower interest rates by a half-percentage point, the potential strike of the International Longshoremen's Association union impacting the east and gulf coast ports, the pending changes to the de minimis exceptions for customs, and the recent downsizing trend of TL carriers. Finally, we talk a little about the use of AI in transportation and in media in general.
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This week’s guest is Felipe Capella, CEO and co-founder of LoadSmart. After 10 years as a lawyer, Felipe decided to start a company to build something along with his co-founder, Ricardo Salgado. They chose freight transportation since it has a huge total available market, is highly fragmented, and was ripe for technological improvement. They initially started out as a brokerage but over the last ten years they have grown LoadSmart into being a platform that provides, among other things, TMS software as a service, managed transportation, brokerage services, and dynamic algorithmic truckload pricing. Recently, they have added two versions of generative AI to their platform: Co-Pilot which enables plain language querying of a shipper’s data within their TMS and, most recently, Freight Intel AI which makes proactive recommendations on a shipper’s network based on an analysis of their actual transactions. In our conversation, we discuss how the truckload and brokerage market has evolved over the last decade, the importance of context when generating a rate, the growth of algorithmic spot pricing, and where AI should (and should not) be used within supply chains.
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This week’s guest is Dr. Alex Scott, Associate Professor of SCM at UTK and co-founder of Sustainable Logistics. There is growing pressure on companies - both regulatory and socially - to reduce the emissions that they generate. One of the largest sources of CO2 emissions is freight transportation. Unfortunately, most companies outsource their transportation to carriers - so they do not have direct control over the asset being used. These types of emissions - where the company is responsible for it but does not have direct control over the asset - are referred to as scope 3. They are the hardest type of emissions to measure. In our conversation, Alex describes how Scope 3 emissions are currently being measured today, discusses the regulatory trends in emissions monitoring, and explains the trade-offs between reporting accuracy and cost of collection. Through his research and now his company, Sustainable Logistics, Alex has developed a better approach that improves the accuracy of the measurement of Scope 3 emissions from truck transportation. This is an issue that is only going to become more critical for all transportation executives, so I encourage everyone to take a listen.
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This week’s guest is Josh Brogan, Partner at Kearney. Josh is one of the lead authors of the recently released CSCMP’s Annual State of Logistics Report titled “Waiting for the tide to turn”. As most listeners probably know, the report is authored by the management consulting firm Kearney and presented by Penske Logistics. The conversation, while focusing mainly on the report itself, meandered through other topics including reshoring trends, potential consolidation of the 3PL or Lead Logistics Provider sectors, the increasing need for rapid network flow analysis for shippers, and the blending of asset and non-asset-based providers. The report has a ton of great information - we encourage everyone to reach out to CSCMP and read the report.
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This week’s guest is Alex Leslie, Senior Research Analyst at the American Transportation Research Institute. Alex is the lead author of ATRI’s latest research publication “Analysis of the Operational Costs of Trucking: 2024 Update”. I had Alex on just about a year ago for the 2023 report. Using detailed polling and data analysis, Alex can reveal not only the current average per-mile costs, but also changes in the individual cost components, the impact of carrier size on costs, and underlying trends in trucking activities. In our conversation, we discuss the report in detail and try to understand changes year over year - as well as what to expect going forward.
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