Does JB Hunt or other trucking carriers use load boards to find freight?

My daughter works at JB, one of my best friends was an executive there, another best friend was a fleet manager.

They don't even know what a load board is. They have contracts north to south, east to west. They have no need to contact other brokers to find freight.

 

There is a computer system that the big shippers and trucking companies are on. The shippers "tender" a load on the system and a carrier either accepts it or rejects the load. When the load is delivered with the bills clean, the carrier marks it delivered and then in a few days, the shipper sends the money to the carriers electronically. The carrier needs to keep a copy of the signed bill of lading in case there is a dispute about something. It is like $20,000.00 to get a spot on the system I was told.

 

Lot of different systems to tender loads. BluJay, Lean, ect. Don't know of any that charge that much, most I've seen is 1K/month lease. How most larger(and a lot of smaller) shippers tender the loads

 

I put five years in with Jb from '99 to '04. They used to use some brokers back then but most of what I hauled was direct shippers. If you only knew the rates they command.

 

no mega charges less than $5-6 per mile in this economy. That’s given.

 

How can they afford a brand new plastic truck and brand new trailers? They charge a lot. My buddy worked at a steel mill in north east Ohio. Tried to get shipping manager to have Jb pull their loads. Guy says, they are too expensive. My buddy says get a quote. Three times more than PI&I their house carrier.

 

that’s the cost of offering capacity. Every jb Hunt load I did as PO had minimum of 5 dropped trailers at shippers warehouse minimum. The larger shippers had 20+. So no wait time for shippers. Load and have tractor drop and hook.


There was also a pool of trailers sitting at 2-3 locations for a midsize city.

that costs money and convenience ain’t cheap. Shippers pay more per mile but save on time and labor.

 

You are one of the few that understand. It was 1999 and Wal-mart said to Jb. I need this many trailers at this many Dc's to what they were calling center point. Wal mart cross dock operations. With a snap of Jb Hunt's fingers there was a bunch of brand new trailers coming by rail to Wall Pa. Myself and 10 other drivers were paid to bob-tail from Woodland Pa to wall, hook to empty trailer and drop off at the Dc. Did it for two weeks. Does anybody think Jb did it for free? What about Prime, Swift? No one truck wonder could even come close to the rates they get. I sat in on a meeting with some big wigs one time. They all talked about the owner operators out there that drive rates down. I spoke up immediately, I have friends at Land Star that do just fine. Regional vice president said, we don't have a problem with those guys. We have a problem with the guys that are booking loads that come from us but are double brokered and the guy is getting screwed. He said we need to weed those guys out. I said who? He said the the who will work for nothing. I said which one? He said one should be shot and the other one tarred.

 

I am not anti-owner operator. Had many friends that did well. Saw many at shippers and receivers. Too many bad words to follow. Have to go to bed. Life of a line haul guy.