Baton is launching a “digital local fleet” that uses artificial intelligence to maximize driver profits and pass on savings to shippers
Every day, 40% of US trucking capacity is lost because of traffic, inefficient coordination with warehouses, and difficulty in planning loads at the right time, in the right direction, for the right driver.
If you’re an owner operator, this wasted time is coming out of your paycheck.
If you’re a shipper, you’re either paying for this lost utilization or waiting for your load to get delivered when it matches a carrier’s network.
It’s no one’s fault, but it’s everyone’s problem.
We started Baton with the goal of eliminating wasted time in transportation by “relaying” the first and final mile of long-haul loads for some of the largest trucking companies in the US (e.g. Bison, Werner, etc).
During this time, we developed a powerful technology platform for managing a local fleet.
Now, we’re expanding our service and utilizing the technology and local fleet that we’ve built to do any type of local freight, whether that’s first and final mile moves for carriers, or local freight for shippers and brokers.
And we’re doing this while getting 20% more productivity per truck per week than the biggest and best carriers in the industry!!
Here’s how we do it:
Our technology allows us to out-execute in local environments.
Check out our planning board demo!
Our operators start with an empty gantt-chart view of all available drivers.
They click “optimize.”
Our system then automatically looks at our available freight and assigns it in the most efficient way possible to maximize driver productivity and profitability.
Our operators check for exceptions, re-assign any loads they think need to be modified, and then click “save” to automatically dispatch the loads to drivers!
What if our drivers have an empty slot in their schedules?
Baton has integrations with several of the largest load boards and spot portals. When our operators click “suggest,” our system scans all the load boards in our network to identify “potential orders” that fit into our gaps.
How do we know how long an order will take?
One of the defining features of our software is how we estimate load duration.
To do this, we consume live traffic data to create transit time estimates and aggregate ELD data from trucks waiting at thousands of warehouses every single day to create unload time estimates.
Having the ability to measure the true duration of a load, we can then send all of our freight volume into a convex optimization algorithm that outputs an optimal driver schedule.
What if something changes?
Local freight environments are incredibly chaotic. Delivery requests come in at the last minute, equipment breaks down, warehouses change appointments, deliveries take longer than expected, loads get canceled, and drivers call in sick. It’s crazy out there. When it works, drivers are turning and making great money, but when it doesn’t, drivers are sitting around and barely getting by.
Baton gets around this by allowing our team to modify schedules, adapt to driver preferences, and add new constraints on the fly. If a driver doesn’t want to handle a certain type of freight or a shipper requires special equipment, we can easily add that as a constraint to our optimizer and the system adapts.
How does the system improve over time?
Unlike any other schedule optimization solution, Radius leverages reinforcement learning to dynamically generate constraints (e.g. a certain warehouse has odd lunch breaks or requires special equipment), maximizing productivity while balancing driver preferences.
The result: A more efficient and consistent local fleet, more pay for drivers, and lower costs for shippers!!
Interested in driving for us or having Baton support your freight needs?
Reach out: info@baton.io
We’re live in LA!
