On a day when many people in the Midwest are celebrating Easter by dealing with weather that looks like Christmas, many are wishing that today really was an April Fool’s joke. And while not all Americans are used to mixing their holidays with an unseasonal amount of snow the first day of April, there is a profession where people are used to thinking about Christmas ling before it arrives and ordering for Easter months in advance to make sure that the eggs and the baskets arrive on time. In fact, freight brokers oversee a complicated schedule of orders and deliveries that help families across America purchase seasonal items when they are needed.
Using freight broker software solutions and types of load boards, freight brokers facilitate very complicated tasks that drive many parts of today’s economy. With the use of different types of load boards and transportation management software, freight brokers are an important part of the process that helps businesses of all sizes not only compete, but succeed.
Consider some of these facts and figures about the transportation industry and the impact that it has on the nation’s economy:
- 12 million trucks, rail cars, locomotives, and vessels work together to move goods over the nation’s transportation network.
- The value of freight moved is expected to increase from $882 per ton in 2007 to $1,377 per ton in 2040, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation.
- 23% of all for-hire freight tonnage can be attributed to retail goods, according to Satish Jindel, president of SJ Consulting Group.
- In the year 2013, the trucking industry transported nearly 15 billion tons of cargo. By they year 2040, that number is expected to increase to 18.79 billion tons, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports.
- Trucks carry the largest share of freight by value, tons, and ton-miles for shipments moving 750 or fewer miles.
- In comparison, rail is the dominant mode by tons and ton-miles for shipments that are moved from 750 to 2,000 miles.
Even if it were not snowing in parts of the country on this April Fool’s Day Easter Sunday, there would still be other interruptions that might keep many goods from getting where they are needed. Fortunately, the careful attention of freight brokers can help solve delivery challenges that many companies face.
More like this article.