Leaf was featured for our use of AI to analyze transportation contracting practices and provide actionable insights for shippers to coordinate across the industry and implement long-term contracting. This recognition underscores Leaf’s commitment to helping shippers, carriers, and brokers better navigate market uncertainty and gain business reliability, while eliminating waste in the transportation industry. 

Today, 30% of trucks drive empty due to a lack of coordination, presenting an enormous opportunity to improve efficiency and reliability. On top of this the transportation market continues to see increased volatility that makes it difficult to plan ahead with certainty. Leaf was purpose built from day one to address these concerns with Adapt, which uses an AI-based approach to transportation data analytics. 

We’re using Adapt to coordinate multi-shipper moves that eliminate empty miles at scale, and to introduce a portfolio approach to contracting that gives our customers transportation stability. Our long-term Flex contracts allow shippers, carriers, and brokers to see beyond the typical 24-48 hour contracting window. By contracting over a longer time horizon, our customers gain 98% on-time performance while securing up to 20% cost savings through eliminated empty miles.

Our next step in addressing market volatility and empty miles is our Flex Fleets offering. We introduced Flex Fleets earlier this year as the first multi-shipper flexible dedicated fleets. These offer the same high level of service as traditionally owned or leased dedicated fleets, with the agility to adapt to market demand.  

At Leaf, we’re working to build the future of transportation and solve freight’s coordination problem. We are optimistic about the future of our industry, and being named a “Mover & Shaker” is confirmation we’re on the right path together with our customers.

The post Leaf Named a Gartner “Mover & Shaker” for Transforming Logistics appeared first on Leaf Logistics.

After piloting Flex Fleets throughout last year with shippers like BASF, Party City, and others, we’ve reduced empty miles by 76% while saving shippers up to 30% on their line haul costs. By the end of this year, Flex Fleets will serve all major domestic markets.

Flex Fleets for Shippers

Reliable Capacity & Superior Service

Dedicated fleets provide the highest levels of service and efficiency for shippers — these benefits are costly to maintain. Dedicated fleets traditionally require leases, often with terms of five or more years, while private fleets require maintenance, insurance, and payroll management. Shippers using Flex Fleets are achieving 99.9% on-time performance delivering to their customers, drastically reducing OTIF penalties while ensuring product delivery always matches demand.

Cost Efficiency & Reduced CO₂ Emissions

Flex Fleets are built using Leaf Adapt — a data analytics program that coordinates multi-shipper moves across the transportation grid. Flex Fleets execute these circuits at scale, eliminating 76% of empty miles from unloaded trucks driving on the road. And, as a result, Flex Fleets permanently eliminate CO₂ emissions from empty backhauls. This efficiency, from moving freight continuously in circuits, is how Leaf is able to reduce line-haul costs by up to 30% for shippers.

Access to Drop & Hook Trailers

Shippers typically need to own or lease their own trailers to benefit from the flexibility of drop and hook freight. Flex Fleet trailer pools are available to participating shippers so they can benefit from flexible loading and unloading without acquiring assets or increasing operating expenses.

Flex Fleets for Carriers & Brokers

Predictable Schedules

Consistent freight means predictable scheduling so drivers can enjoy their lives on and off the road. Flex Fleets offer coordinated multi-shipper circuits on a predictable schedule. Carriers and brokers share their preferred market and Leaf connects them to their local Flex Fleet.

“Sage Freight’s foremost priority is our people — our brokerage team and the carriers we work with,” said David Norman, COO at Sage Freight. “Access to consistent and desirable freight is exactly what we want to give our driver partners. Through our partnership with Leaf, we’ve been able to offer our carriers high-quality freight, predictable schedules, and coordinated multi-shipper moves that make empty backhauls a thing of the past.”

More Profitable Lanes

Access to multi-shipper volume reduces carriers’ and brokers’ vulnerability to market cycles. Leaf’s Adapt software enables freight contracting months or years in advance, replacing the need for load-by-load tendering. This provides carriers and brokers with a forward view of their revenue so they can focus on growing their businesses, not worry about asset and driver utilization. Flex Fleets allow truck drivers to build a reliable income stream and double their profitability by running more fully-loaded miles. 

Drop and Hook Availability

Power-only freight is typically reserved for the largest asset-based carriers with the resources to service a trailer pool. Starting today, Flex Fleet drivers, of any size, have access to power-only freight and can spend less time idling at the dock and more time on the road.

Find Your Flex Fleet

We’re currently operating Flex Fleets in markets across the United States and will continue to launch Flex Fleets in all major markets by the end of the year. If you’re a shipper, broker, or carrier interested in learning more about Flex Fleets, please contact us at hello@leaflogistics.com.

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Leaf’s CEO, Anshu Prasad, and Head of Product, Chuck Toye, met with participants in the Executive Master’s degree program focused on the intersection of government and industry. The class is composed of O5/O6 level officers from the US Army, Navy, and Air Force; GS-15 level professionals from Departments of Commerce, Homeland Security, and Defense; as well as International Fellows from Germany, Poland, and Ghana. These supply chain experts were keen to discuss the current state of affairs in transportation, the short-term patches being applied to today’s strains, and learn about longer-term solutions to the fragile and unreliable transportation grid.

The discussion revealed interesting observations about the differences between transportation in the private and public sectors. While Leaf leaders presented on the challenges facing the private sector in terms of unenforceable RFP contracts and an opaque view of true supply and demand, the NDU students noted how much more smoothly this works in the public sector where they control both the supply and demand. However, the participants admitted that their streamlined and reliable military transportation planning process does break down when the military has to operate in a “public-private” situation. In those scenarios, these same military leaders have to procure for-hire private trucking capacity for their domestic bases, and compete with private sector shippers in an opaque and less-than-reliable market for transportation services.

Further work needs to be done to understand the structural, longer-term changes that can be made to have a lasting and sustainable impact on the transportation industry. Policy makers and industry leaders can work together to chart longer-term, structural changes that will benefit supply chains in a lasting and sustainable way. An independent, neutral coordination solution could have a transformative impact on reducing waste in the industry that comes in the form of scope 3 emissions associated with unnecessary empty miles. 

Leaf is building a future where all companies and government entities can transact transportation services with the ease of plugging into a power grid. By removing the difficulties presented by the current siloed transportation industry, Leaf is already a leading force for change. 

We’re working to make transportation planning more predictable and reliable. Using machine learning, Leaf creates efficient circuits that remove empty miles across the industry and the associated carbon emissions. Logistics service providers can move more freight in fewer miles so that they can maximize their asset utilization, while shippers realize a lower cost structure. 

All of the students in the NDU program have been serving our government honorably for a number of years, and it was a privilege to speak with them and discuss the current state of the transportation industry and help inform their year-end theses for the class. We also enjoyed hearing from some of the participants who had driven trucks during their careers. It was entertaining to listen to a Colonel describe the last time they drove a truck! 

Thank you, NDU!

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This article first appeared on FoodLogistics.com, authored by Leaf Product Lead Andrea Pope

Whether the motivation to implement sustainability initiatives comes from government regulations, shareholder pressure or changing consumer demands, most corporations today have set goals around sustainability for their businesses.

As corporations set sustainability goals, they pursue a number of strategies to address reducing their footprint. Whether reducing their own emissions or reducing the emissions emitted from the energy products it sells, and companies begin offering more renewable energy sources, prioritizing land stewardship and addressing deforestation, among other initiatives.

These are strong examples for how companies can, and should, pursue sustainability across the various areas of their businesses. However, many of these goals have longer time horizons and require significant capital investment today. In the meantime, business leaders need to consider areas where they can make an immediate impact to start reducing their carbon footprint.

One area where corporate sustainability can find significant traction is in the transportation part of the supply chain.

Where the trucking industry goes green
In many ways the trucking industry provides the backbone for the American economy. Truck drivers help retailers stock their shelves, supply the gas stations and play a crucial role in moving food and beverage items through the chain. However, this critical piece of the U.S. supply chain comes with an environmental impact in the form of carbon emissions. The good news is that truckload transportation is an area where carbon reduction can be addressed in the near term in a capacity that benefits all industry participants.

Electric vehicles are usually the primary item that comes to mind in regard to how the trucking industry is addressing the issue of carbon emissions. Companies are investing in greener transportation. But, updating the technology for electric vehicles requires a significant capital investment. Additionally, there are infrastructure issues such as the lack of widespread charging stations along major trucking routes. This will need to be addressed in order for widespread adoption to occur. While the time horizon for these changes is significant, another area that dramatically drives down the industry’s carbon footprint today is increased network efficiency.

Empty trucks offer an opportunity for sustainability initiatives
Today, 30% of the trucks on American roads are driving empty. Meanwhile, shippers across the country are scrambling to find truck drivers to move their goods. This imbalance causes shippers to scramble for load coverage when there is a surplus of capacity.

This is due to the siloed nature of the industry.

The transportation industry historically operates across a series of silos, with each shipper having a limited number of carriers they work with to move their goods. This means that while there may be pockets of excess capacity within a single network, a shipper in need of a truck elsewhere in the industry cannot see or access that capacity. Moreover, even if a shipper can identify excess capacity from another area of the overall transportation market, the existing tools to secure that truck and fit it into their own transportation plan have not existed. But new technologies have largely mitigated this issue, even if they are not in widespread use.

New supply chain technologies offer a path to sustainability and cost reduction
With the explosion of logistics technology companies and initiatives in recent years, efforts have been made to advance the industry by providing new levels of connectedness and visibility across the industry. New companies have emerged to offer real-time freight tracking and supply chain visibility, while others have specialized in automating the outdated processes of communication by building digital freight brokerages and other digital intermediaries.

To access the full article from FoodLogistics.com, click here.

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