Overdrive Magazine | Trucking Business News & Owner Operator Info
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/649008
March 2016 | Overdrive | 35 log time. Information sharing [with ship- pers and receivers] will make the flow of freight in and out better." Traditionally, owner-operators "never are 100 percent safe" when times get tough, particularly in an exclusive lease to a carrier with a large number of com- pany drivers and owned assets to protect, says Gary Carlisle. No longer driving, he owns a truck and manages the small pri- vate fleet of oil and gas services company Agri-Empresa in Midland, Texas. However, if Brannon and others are correct, tomorrow's owner-operators may be more willing to assume such risk. What's more, continued diversification of business partners for the most inde- pendent of truck operators holds poten- tial to reduce the risk. "There's an increasing kind of osmosis between the big guys and the small guys" in accounting, vehicle and driver moni- toring, and other areas, Thompson says. One example is Trucker Path's rout- ing and load-matching application, which integrates transportation man- agement software, says Charles Myers, vice president of strategy. Integrated TMS tools help manage functions such as load negotiation, invoice collection, tax accounting and profit analysis. Integrated TMS tools for small fleets already are available from companies such as DAT and Truckstop.com, and they will be a growing boon to owner- operators, he says. "If the guy can fill out his cost matrix in the back end of the [software] – fuel, insurance, tires – this software will quickly spit out what his profit is and how he's doing with his loads," Myers says. "Managing all of the costs and try- ing to figure out where's the sweet spot on their rate per mile" could become much easier. Amen says such widely available and affordable tools will increasingly "free up the driver to not be tied exclusively to massive systems and massive companies." A multiplicity of business partners, even for those operating without author- ity, could evolve into the norm. Given increasing connection between the truck cab and the back office, the threat to today's exclusive-lease model is real. "More so than it happens today, [own- er-operators] might haul for multiple car- riers rather than one," says Thompson. He foresees it being commonplace that an independent with his own authority may "pull a Schneider or Swift trailer from point to point and then get someone else's trailer to go back." Or a nonexclusive blended leas- ing model, with carriers agreeing to share capacity, may emerge as a norm. Something similar is happening today in the Omnitracs Sylectus Alliance Network, particularly prevalent among expedited carriers using the Sylectus TMS. The platform allows carriers to easily reach out to others using the sys- tem for needed capacity when a load can't get covered, streamlining such transactions. Owner-operators' forecast for rates and pay 16% 23% 61% ? Little will change 27% Other 2% Company drivers will be salaried employees 6% Company drivers will be paid hourly or hourly-mileage/ percentage combo 14% Pay models will be more variable, a matter of choice for leased operators 6% Future generations will gravitate toward independence, greater percentage preference when leased 6% With increased competition, rates/pay fall 16% Capacity near 100 percent utilization becomes long-term norm, rates/pay rise 7% Freight middlemen replaced by technology, delivering higher profit to independents 16% OverdriveOnline.com poll The largest group of respondents to this January poll indicated long-term expectations for rates and pay that could turn out positively or negatively. Respondents were allowed up to three choices. One of the big problems I see in the current model is that if these guys can't get loaded on a regular basis, then because they're leased to that carrier … they often can't go out and book loads on their own. — Charles Myers of Trucker Path, on the potential for more non-exclusive lease arrangements