Schneider is making a monumental shift in its intermodal operations, moving all eastern rail business from CSX to Norfolk Southern. This strategic partnership aims to unlock significant growth, enhance capacity flexibility, and drive more freight off the roads and onto rail. Discover the full implications of this major move and what it means for the future of intermodal logistics.
Schneider National is transferring its eastern intermodal operations to Norfolk Southern, ending its prior relationship with CSX in what both companies describe as a growth-driven realignment. The deal, announced the same day Schneider reported its third-quarter earnings, positions Norfolk Southern as Schneider’s exclusive eastern rail partner alongside Union Pacific in the West.
Michael Baumgardt, Schneider’s EVP of Intermodal and Logistics, said the decision followed a lengthy evaluation focused on network reach, train frequency, and proximity to population centers. “It starts with growth and it’s really about, okay, how can we get closer to our customers? How can we make sure that we get more truck freight off of the road and into intermodal where it makes sense?” Baumgardt said. Customer response in the first 24 hours after the announcement was positive, he added, particularly around Schneider’s asset-based model featuring company drivers, company chassis, and company containers.
Norfolk Southern’s Vice President Shawn Tureman said the railroad has been building toward this moment for years, growing from the third- to the second-largest intermodal franchise in the United States by 2018. In 2022, the railroad set a new target to double its intermodal franchise again and has been directing discretionary capital toward that goal ever since.
“It’s not a question of if, but when. And the way we’re going to get there is by partnering with powerful partners like Schneider,” Tureman said.
The current rate environment adds urgency to the move. Truckload rates carry a 30%-plus premium over intermodal rates, making intermodal an increasingly attractive option for shippers. Baumgardt said the primary capacity constraint is not equipment — boxes are available — but rather dray capacity and driver supply. He argued Schneider’s company-driver model gives it a structural advantage in managing that bottleneck.
Both executives said the pending Norfolk Southern-CSX merger, a topic that surfaces weekly in industry discussions, was not the driver of this agreement, though they acknowledged it could improve the product. “The merger would be icing on the cake in terms of enhancing service, reliability, and speed,” Baumgardt said. Tureman echoed that view, pointing to single-line service, shorter routes, and reduced interchange friction as potential merger benefits for Schneider’s customers.
On the transition itself, both sides said planning began immediately after the agreement and that the goal is a seamless handoff. Tureman said Norfolk Southern pulled forward some infrastructure investments specifically to prepare. “What I hope, 3 months from now, for our customers not to have noticed anything,” he said, adding that a smooth transition would set the stage for joint sales efforts heading into what he called a strong intermodal market in 2026 and 2027.
Schneider reported earnings growth in its intermodal segment in Q3, consistent with the company’s stated growth pillars of logistics, dedicated, and intermodal. Dedicated revenue per truck rose 3.1% in the quarter, though Baumgardt emphasized that disciplined freight selection and appropriate driver allocation remain priorities as the company manages through the current freight cycle.
- Schneider is moving its eastern intermodal rail partnership to Norfolk Southern, complementing its existing western alliance with Union Pacific.
- Norfolk Southern grew from the 3rd to 2nd largest U.S. intermodal franchise by 2018 and launched a second doubling initiative at its 2022 Investor Day.
- Truckload rates currently run more than 30% above intermodal rates, with dray and driver availability — not box count — cited as the primary capacity constraint.
This Summary is generated thanks to a transcription of the interview, for the full interview please enjoy the video above.
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The trailer market is experiencing an unexpected surge, with utilization rates surpassing even pandemic levels. Craig Barth, CFO at Premier Trailer Leasing, breaks down why this supply-side driven boom is happening, the shift in demand for older equipment, and critical fraud warnings for those seeking rentals. We also dive into how fleets are navigating CapEx decisions and the importance of preventive maintenance to keep trailers on the road.
Trailer leasing utilization at Premier Trailer Leasing has climbed to the highest levels the company has ever recorded, surpassing even peak pandemic-era demand — a development its CFO says caught the industry off guard. The driver is not a surge in freight volumes but a contraction in supply: carriers running older equipment have been exiting the market, leaving those that remain competing for newer trailers from leasing companies.
“The trailer market right now is extremely hot. It is something we honestly did not see coming at the beginning of this year,” said Craig Barth, CFO of Premier Trailer Leasing. “Today, our utilization is running as high as it ever has, even beating some of our peak utilization during the pandemic.”
“We’re buying all we can in the 4th quarter to meet customer demand. Right now, we’re placing orders well into next year trying to get ahead of what we think is going to be a very strong 2027.” — Craig Barth, CFO, Premier Trailer Leasing
The tightest segment of the market is trailers aged 10 years and newer. Barth said customers originally sought 0-to-5-year-old units, but that cohort has been entirely absorbed. Demand has also been reinforced by years of underinvestment at the manufacturing level: Barth noted that trailer manufacturers have been building well below replacement volumes for the last three years, leaving carriers that preferred to retire trailers at five years now running equipment seven, eight, or nine years old and facing rising maintenance costs.
Demand firmed noticeably in the May-June timeframe, Barth said, when conversations with customers about late third-quarter and fourth-quarter needs turned “flat out optimistic.” Premier does not normally purchase new equipment in the fourth quarter — typically a period when trailers return to the yard — but this year it is buying as much as it can. Flatbed trailers are seeing particularly acute pressure, driven in part by data center construction activity, with availability rather than price the primary constraint. On the dry van side, resilient consumer spending heading into the holiday season is adding to demand.
Carrier CapEx constraints are also steering business toward leasing. With fleets simultaneously cycling through truck renewals and contending with elevated fuel costs and rising driver pay, many operators lack budget to purchase trailers outright. “A lot of our customers right now are going through renewal cycles on the truck side of things,” Barth said, “and they’re having to focus their energies there.”
On the fraud front, Barth issued a warning about a scheme targeting trailer renters. Bad actors are monitoring drop yards and distribution centers for trailers sitting idle for three to four days, then advertising those units — falsely — for rent on Facebook Marketplace. The listings use AI-generated invoices and demand payment via Zelle or Venmo. Victims have lost between $700 and $1,000 per incident before authorities are notified. Barth said Premier never accepts Zelle or Venmo payments and urged anyone considering a trailer rental to call one of the company’s 42 branch locations across 31 states to verify legitimacy before sending money.
- Premier Trailer Leasing’s utilization has hit all-time highs, surpassing pandemic peaks, driven by supply contraction rather than demand growth.
- Trailer manufacturers have built below replacement volumes for three years, pushing carriers to run equipment 7–9 years old and turn to leasing as CapEx budgets remain constrained.
- A Facebook Marketplace fraud scheme uses AI-generated invoices to advertise leased trailers illegally, demanding Zelle or Venmo payments and costing victims $700–$1,000 per incident.
This Summary is generated thanks to a transcription of the interview, for the full interview please enjoy the video above.
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SAIA President & CEO Fritz Holgrefe breaks down the company’s impressive third-quarter earnings, including record revenue and significant improvements in customer satisfaction and claims ratios. Discover how strategic network investments and a customer-centric approach are driving SAIA’s success and what lies ahead for the logistics giant.
Saia reported record third-quarter revenue of $982.5 million, up 17% year over year, with earnings per share of $3.41, the LTL carrier’s president and CEO said in an interview with FreightWaves. Alongside the results, the company announced a $250 million share repurchase program — a signal that years of heavy network investment are giving way to a phase focused on profitability and capital returns.
The revenue gain was driven by a combination of fuel surcharges, core pricing initiatives, and tonnage growth. Tonnage per workday rose approximately 8.9% year over year, reaching a record, while revenue per shipment climbed 5.8%. Shipments per workday, however, grew less than 1%, a deliberate outcome of the carrier’s effort to attract higher-weight freight from customers that value premium service.
Service metrics underpinned the financial results. The company’s claims ratio fell 40% year over year, and its internally tracked Net Promoter Score improved 15% over the same period. The operating ratio came in at 87.6, and newly opened facilities saw OR improvement of roughly 40 basis points year over year, with operating income at those locations up about 22%.
“We see the potential in this business to really drive, as we continue to mature the network, mature our portfolio of customers, the opportunity is really to get our OR kind of into the, you know, sort of low 80s, upper 70s,” the CEO said. “Good quarter, but just kind of tip of the iceberg of where I think we could take this.”
One persistent drag is the Los Angeles region, which the CEO described as the carrier’s longest length of haul and highest revenue-per-bill market. That market has remained soft year over year, creating a mix headwind. He attributed the weakness partly to modal shift and partly to disciplined pricing — acknowledging that some freight simply does not fit Saia’s network economics at current rate expectations.
On the network side, Saia has added more than 40 facilities and relocated 25 since 2022, bringing 60% of its locations within 50 miles of 60% of the addressable U.S. market. That compares with 35% in 2017. The carrier now operates 219 facilities across the lower 48 states. Future expansion will be more measured, with the CEO pointing to underpenetrated markets — citing Trenton, New Jersey, and Laredo, Texas, among facilities acquired through the bankruptcy auction process — as areas with long-term strategic value.
“We are as well positioned as the company has ever been,” he said, adding that the focus going forward will be converting newer facilities into established markets with double-digit share, similar to what Saia has achieved in Texas over many years.
- Saia posted record Q3 revenue of $982.5M, up 17% YoY, with EPS of $3.41 and an 87.6 operating ratio
- Claims ratio dropped 40% and Net Promoter Score rose 15% YoY, while tonnage per workday hit a record, up ~8.9%
- Saia announced a $250M share repurchase and targets an OR in the low 80s to upper 70s as its 40-plus new facilities since 2022 mature
This Summary is generated thanks to a transcription of the interview, for the full interview please enjoy the video above.
The post SAIA’s Record $982.5M Q3 Revenue | What’s Next? appeared first on FreightWaves.
Jett McCandless, founder and CEO of project44 and LSP44, received the FreightTech Vanguard Award at FreightWaves’ F3: Future of Freight Festival dinner Monday, recognizing his contributions to the freight and logistics industry.
FreightWaves presented the award during F3 in Chattanooga, Tennessee, an annual event focused on innovation and the future of freight. The event also featured the FreightTech 25, an annual ranking of the 25 most influential freight technology companies selected from the broader FreightTech 100, which was announced in late September.
While the FreightTech rankings recognize companies for their current influence, the Vanguard Award recognizes founders for their long-term impact. McCandless was independently selected by FreightWaves for the award.
“So many technologies and innovations are driven by the vision, the relentlessness, the grind of our founders,” FreightWaves CEO Craig Fuller said as he presented the award. “We thought that this particular founder represented the best example of all of those characteristics.”
For McCandless, receiving that award on the F3 stage meant a lot.
“To have that recognition from him (Fuller) has made for one of the most proud moments of my life,” McCandless said.
McCandless founded project44 in 2014 to provide real-time visibility into shipments and supply chains. The company connects shippers, carriers and logistics providers with shipment data to help businesses track freight and manage transportation operations.
In July, project44 split its operations into two businesses: project44, which focuses on enterprise shippers, and LSP44, which provides artificial intelligence agents and application programming interfaces to logistics service providers, including freight brokers, forwarders and third-party logistics companies.
Fuller said project44 “defined a category” and has since extended its platform beyond where it started. He said McCandless’ path is what the award is meant to honor.
“I know that what they have built is not what they initially envisioned,” Fuller said. “I think that’s ultimately what being a founder is all about: applying grit, dedication, innovation, at times humility, admitting that things you set out to do may not be relevant currently, that markets change.”
McCandless dedicated the award to the people who handle freight’s worst moments.
“I want to accept this award on behalf of everyone who’s picked up the phone at 2 a.m. because a load went sideways,” McCandless said. “I’ve been that person, and I know a lot of you here have been too.”
Over the past decade, project44 has built a network that McCandless said now covers 286,000 carriers in 194 countries and territories and handles more than 700 million synchronized events a day.
The company’s next chapter is focused on AI agents. Building an agent is now the easy part, what makes one useful is how well it understands the freight industry and the different needs of the businesses operating within it, McCandless noted.
“‘On time’ means something totally different for a retailer than it does for a port,” McCandless said. “An agent that doesn’t know that isn’t smart. It’s just confidently wrong.”
McCandless described a future in which the 2 a.m. call never happens because the system already knows what went wrong, what the reroute options are and which carriers are best suited to handle it.
McCandless closed with a message for other founders in the room.
“To every founder out there doing the hard work, the unglamorous work: keep going,” he said.
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Every carrier with a safety technology program eventually learns the same lesson: the hardware is the easy part. Cameras can be mounted, collision mitigation can be specified on new tractors, and telematics can be switched on. What’s harder to install is the belief, among people who spend their working lives behind the wheel, that the technology is on their side.
That gap between deployment and acceptance is where many programs succeed or stall. A fleet can invest heavily in sensors and software and still see limited results if drivers view the tools as surveillance instead of support. Carriers that close the gap tend to treat technology as one piece of a larger system that includes training, fair coaching and clear accountability.
Werner has spent years building that kind of system. Ryan Gass, Vice President of Safety and Terminal Management at Werner, walked through how the carrier approaches its safety program, from equipment decisions to driver trust to the role artificial intelligence is beginning to play in coaching.
A philosophy before a technology stack
For a carrier with a reputation as a safety leader among truckload fleets, the starting point isn’t a product. It’s a principle.
“Safety is one of our core values. It starts with the foundational belief that nothing we do is worth getting hurt or hurting others,” Gass said. That belief shapes how Werner approaches the tools it puts in front of drivers and safety staff.
According to Gass, the company relies on a combination of technology, training and accountability, with the goal of giving associates the tools to work proactively and giving drivers the best possible in-cab experience.
The order matters. Technology is positioned as a means of delivering on a value the company already holds, not as a substitute for it. That framing has practical consequences. When a fleet’s safety program starts with a commitment, every technology decision gets tested against a simple question: does this help keep people from getting hurt?
Newer equipment, more tools
One of the more direct ways Werner delivers on that commitment is through the equipment itself. Fleet age is often discussed in terms of maintenance cost and uptime, but it also determines which safety systems are available to drivers.
“We made a commitment to provide our drivers with a best in class experience with their equipment and that is reflected by the low average age of our tractors and trailers,” Gass said.
A younger fleet means the latest collision mitigation technology is more widely deployed across the company’s tractors. Werner is also in the process of outfitting its tractors with sideview cameras, adding to the forward-facing camera technology it adopted several years ago.
That layering reflects a broader pattern in fleet safety. Individual systems each address a specific risk, such as a following-distance event, a lane change or a backing maneuver. Combined, they give a carrier more complete visibility into what is happening around the truck and inside the cab.
What changes for the driver
For a driver, the question about any new system is practical: what does it change on the road?
Gass described collision mitigation as a “belt and suspenders” approach, an added layer of protection on top of the skills and judgment drivers already bring to the job. “Collision mitigation technology provides a belt and suspenders approach to our drivers adding in a layer of safety for our drivers,” he said.
There is in-cab coaching that provides active feedback and coaching to the driver. The sideview cameras also feed a monitor the driver can watch, which helps with blind spot monitoring during lane changes and while backing.
Those are everyday moments, and they’re where many incidents start. Giving drivers real-time information in the moment shortens the distance between a risky behavior and a correction.
Werner reports results on both sides of the ledger that safety leaders watch most closely. “We have seen a reduction in our accident/incident frequency as well as the severity,” Gass said.
The same data also serves the back office. Real-time information captured in the cab is available as evidence to assist with claim resolution, which turns a safety tool into a claims tool as well.
Trust is the real installation
Cameras raise a fair question for any driver: what happens to the footage? Gass was direct that the answer determines whether a program works. “Driver trust is extremely important to the success of any safety technology program,” he said.
Werner acknowledges drivers may initially have concerns about cameras and how the information collected will be used. Gass called those concerns understandable and said the company takes them seriously. The carrier’s response is to be explicit about intent.
“At Werner, our focus is on using technology to improve safety, not to micromanage our drivers,” Gass said.
In practice, that means transparency, consistent coaching and helping drivers understand how the systems can protect them. Video is a central part of that argument. When an incident occurs, footage can help establish what actually happened, which can protect a driver from a false accusation. Gass noted that driver acceptance improves when technology is used fairly and drivers see the benefits firsthand.
Privacy is part of the equation, too. Werner says it works to be thoughtful about what information it collects and how that information is used. Gass summed up the approach this way: “Ultimately, trust is earned through actions, not just policies.”
The goal, he said, is an environment where drivers see safety technology as a tool working for them rather than something working against them. For carriers weighing similar investments, the lesson is that rollout and communication deserve as much planning as the hardware.
Coaching at the scale of 8,500+ trucks
Technology generates data, but data only changes behavior when someone acts on it. At Werner, camera and telematics systems help identify behaviors so the company can address potential risks before they result in an accident.
The challenge is scale. “When you’re managing a fleet of 8,500+ trucks, delivering timely and consistent coaching across the organization is a significant undertaking,” Gass said.
Werner’s answer is to begin incorporating AI-generated coaching that uses the actual likenesses of its safety team. The idea is to deliver consistent, personalized coaching while keeping a familiar connection between drivers and the safety professionals they work with.
It’s a notable approach because it addresses a tension that many large fleets face. Personal relationships make coaching more effective, but personal relationships don’t scale easily. Gass sees AI as a way to resolve that tension rather than deepen it. “AI provides an opportunity to expand our coaching capabilities without losing the personal relationships that are so important to a successful safety program,” he said.
The company is still early in that effort, which Gass described as beginning to incorporate AI coaching. But the direction is clear: use technology to extend the reach of the safety team, not to replace the people on it.
Recruiting, retention and the business case
In a tight driver market, carriers naturally ask whether safety technology helps or hurts hiring. Gass offered a measured answer. “Technology alone isn’t necessarily going to recruit or retain a driver. However, a company that demonstrates a genuine commitment to driver safety, provides fair coaching, and invests in tools that help drivers succeed certainly has an advantage.”
That distinction is useful for fleet leaders. The tools themselves aren’t the selling point. The commitment behind them is.
The same logic applies to the financial case. Werner views safety technology as an investment in its drivers, its equipment and the long-term performance of its business, and Gass said the return goes well beyond the initial cost of the equipment. The company evaluates improvements in driver behavior, accident frequency, accident severity, claims expenses and overall operational efficiency.
According to Gass, Werner has seen significant reductions in critical safety events, DOT accidents and accident-related costs through its operations. Those results reinforce the importance of pairing the right technology with consistent coaching and accountability.
He was careful not to overstate what technology can do. “The technology itself doesn’t prevent every accident, but when it’s used effectively, it can make a measurable difference,” Gass said.
Then there’s the math of severity. Preventing even a small number of serious accidents can have a substantial impact, Gass said, both financially and, more importantly, on the lives of drivers and the motoring public.
What comes next
Looking ahead, Werner will continue looking at ways to leverage artificial intelligence. Beyond virtual coaching, the company is exploring predictive analytics, enhanced driver communication, and tighter integration among its camera systems, telematics and driver platforms.
Gass expects those connections to pay off over time. As the technologies evolve, he believes there will be more opportunities to identify emerging risks and intervene before an accident occurs.
He also drew a line around what the company will and won’t pursue. “Our focus isn’t on adding technology simply because it’s available. It’s about finding solutions that genuinely improve driver safety and make our operations more efficient,” Gass said.
That discipline may be the most transferable idea from Werner’s approach. Fleets face a steady stream of new safety products, and the temptation to adopt tools for their own sake is real. Filtering every option through a practical test, whether it improves safety and efficiency for drivers and the business, keeps a technology program focused.
The takeaway for fleet leaders
Werner’s experience points to a few consistent themes. Start with a safety commitment the whole organization can repeat. Invest in equipment that gives drivers current tools. Be transparent about how video and data are used. Pair every system with coaching that drivers experience as fair. And treat the data as a starting point, not a finish line.
Gass framed the larger goal this way: “The future of safety technology isn’t just about collecting more data. It’s about turning that data into meaningful action that prevents accidents and keeps America’s roads safer.”
For carriers still deciding how to build or expand a safety technology program, that may be the most useful measure of success: not how much information the fleet collects, but how reliably it turns that information into action, and whether the drivers on the receiving end trust it enough to use it.
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When a shipper puts an LTL lane out to bid, price is the number everyone can compare in five minutes. Price, however, doesn’t say much about what happens six months into the contract. A rate quote doesn’t indicate whether a shipment arrives on the dock when it’s supposed to, whether the weight matches the bill of lading, or whether a claim gets resolved in two weeks or two months. Those costs simply show up in a shipper’s bottom line in the form of detention charges, rebooked appointments, and customer service hours.
The Mastio & Company LTL Carrier Customer Value & Loyalty Study is one of the best resources for quantifying what happens after the contract goes into effect. Now in its third decade, the survey interviews more than 1,600 shippers directly and scores national LTL carriers across 28 performance attributes. It’s one of the few datasets shippers can use to parse out marketing language from measurable performance.
What’s Measured
Mastio’s methodology does not rely on a self-reported scorecard, and it isn’t built from carrier marketing claims. Each year, researchers conduct detailed interviews with shipping decision-makers (more than 1,600 of them for the 2026 edition) and collect thousands of additional data points from open-ended questions about specific carriers. The result is a grade across 28 attributes that roughly sort into four groups.
Operational performance covers the fundamentals: on-time pickup and delivery, transit time consistency, and whether a shipment arrives without damage or shortages. Service quality covers the human side, including how responsive a carrier’s team is, how proactively it communicates when something goes wrong, and how professional its drivers are at the dock. A third group covers the business mechanics shippers feel on every invoice: billing accuracy, weighing precision, accessorial pricing, and overall ease of doing business. The last layer is loyalty; i.e., whether shippers believe a carrier has earned their repeat business and would recommend it to a peer, which Mastio has found correlates with outsized revenue growth over time.
The study goes beyond a one-dimensional ranking system, and it’s not a simple popularity contest or trophy. It acts as a detailed breakdown of carrier performance and customer experience.
One Strength Isn’t the Only Strategy
No carrier typically wins all 28 categories. The attributes measure genuinely different things, and a carrier built to win on price often isn’t the same carrier built to win on claims prevention or proactive communication. That’s useful information, but only if a shipper knows which categories matter most to their own operation.
If you’re a retailer who moves time-sensitive inventory into stores ahead of a promotional window, you probably care more about on-time delivery and transit consistency than about accessorial pricing. If you’re a manufacturer and you ship oversized freight to a narrow set of industrial customers, you might weigh damage prevention and billing accuracy more heavily, since one mis-rated invoice or damaged pallet can cost more than a year of rate savings. If you’re a high-volume shipper and you juggle multiple carriers, you may care more about ease of doing business and visibility.
The goal isn’t to find the carrier that wins the most categories overall. It’s to find the carrier whose performance aligns with what matters most to a specific supply chain. There are typically a handful of attributes where consistency has an outsized effect on cost and customer experience, whether that’s transit reliability on a tight production schedule or billing accuracy across thousands of monthly invoices.
Old Dominion Freight Line’s Consistent Results
Old Dominion Freight Line’s 2026 Mastio results are a useful illustration of what breadth across categories looks like in practice. The carrier was named the #1 National LTL Carrier for Quality for the 17th consecutive year and ranked first in 24 of the study’s 28 attributes, based on responses from more than 1,600 shippers surveyed this year.
The headline ranking isn’t the whole story as it pertains to shippers, though. If you’re evaluating the data, you need to see where those 24 wins land. They include categories tied directly to operational risk, like on-time delivery and damage and shortage prevention; alongside categories tied to cost predictability, like billing accuracy and ease of doing business; and categories tied to day-to-day account management, like timely customer service and carrier trustworthiness. That’s a carrier scoring well across the operational, financial, and relationship dimensions of the study at once, rather than leaning on strength in one area to offset weakness in another.
“This award is very important to us because it is selected by shippers,” Old Dominion President and CEO Marty Freeman said of the result. “It shapes how we focus our strategy. From strategic investments to our culture, it is all built around serving our customers.”
Mastio & Company President Kevin Huntsman, whose firm runs the independent survey, called the streak “a particularly impressive accomplishment” given how much the carrier landscape has shifted over nearly two decades.
If you’re building a scorecard, multi-category consistency is itself a data point that suggests performance across a range of conditions, not just the ones a single rate quote can capture.
Consistency Is the Important Signal
A 17-year win streak over a time period in which freight shipping has changed substantially is a track record that’s difficult to overstate. Not only have conditions changed drastically over the past two decades, but so have consumer expectations.
Each year’s Mastio results show a carrier exactly where shippers think it’s falling short, and carriers that take the study seriously use that feedback to fix those specific weak spots before the next year’s survey. The relevant information for Old Dominion Freight Line has been less about any single year’s score and more about whether improvements are made in areas that matter most to shippers.
“Our business strategy is focused on customer service,” says Chip Overbey, Senior Vice President, Strategic Planning at Old Dominion Freight Line. “When we look at Mastio, we recognize it outlines the key attributes our customers actually care about. If we know what our customers want, we then have to ask ourselves what we need to do to ensure we’re the best at delivering what they’re looking for. And that’s exactly what we’ve done. It hasn’t happened overnight, but we’ve stayed focused on chipping away at it and continue to do so year after year.”
That’s a different kind of evidence than a single award cycle provides. A carrier that jumps to the top of one year’s survey could be having an unusually good year due to a fluke in the market, or could be benefiting from a competitor’s misfortunes. A carrier with close to two decades of sustained, broad-category performance has had to keep closing gaps as shipper expectations shift around digital visibility, accessorial transparency, or whatever attribute shippers start weighting more heavily next.
Those kinds of consistencies are evidence of an operation that’s built to keep responding to what shippers are saying year-to-year.
Building Your Own Scorecard
The practical takeaway, if you’re evaluating LTL carriers, is that Mastio gives shippers the opportunity to pull the attribute-level data, identify the four or five categories that matter most to a specific supply chain’s priorities, and compare carriers against those specifically.
For a time-sensitive operation, that likely means weighting on-time delivery and transit consistency above everything else. For an operation with thin margins on accessorials, it means scrutinizing billing accuracy and ease of doing business. For an operation managing dozens of lanes with a small team, it means weighting responsiveness and the digital tools that reduce manual follow-up.
If you want to see how a 17-year streak breaks down, category by category, rather than taking the headline ranking at its word, Old Dominion Freight Lines’s results are published in detail on its Mastio award landing page.
Click here to learn more about Old Dominion Freight Line.
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