Your Complete Guide to Load Matching: Everything to Know

Many leaders in the sourcing, procuring , and supplying world believe businesses need to find better ways to improve their carrying capacity and workflows.

A key part of this is efficiently connecting available loads with suitable carriers to optimize delivery routes, minimize transit times, and improve overall logistics coordination.

This means utilising technology to meet the growing demands of the supply chain. As a result, companies trying to get the best value from their carriers have turned to load matching methods to make their supply chains more productive. Optimizing carrier capacity and matching loads with the right equipment are also essential for improving supply chain productivity.

In this article, we’ll discuss load matching, how it works, and more importantly, how it might benefit your business.

There’s lots to cover, so let’s dive in.

What is Load Matching?

Load matching, or freight matching, is assigning loads (freight) to carriers (transportation vehicles). In the past, carrier services used truck load boards to designate available spaces to potential customers.

Traditionally, load matching often involves manual processes such as phone calls and faxes to connect loads with carriers.

The process accounts for various specifications, such as:

• Route

• Destination

• Capacity

• Location

• Load side considerations (e.g., weight, fragility, temperature requirements)

This ensured that load-carrying vehicles were as profitable as possible.

In general, loads outside the general route would come at an extra mileage cost. Carriers have their own preferences and limitations regarding the loads they can carry, including geographic coverage and specialized handling capabilities.

Moreover, if the loads weren’t organised effectively, this could result in unloading taking longer and thus costing the company more money.

Load matching assigns carriers with the appropriate equipment and expertise to handle specific load requirements such as size, weight, and temperature sensitivity. It also considers time-sensitive deliveries and special delivery locations with access restrictions.

For these reasons, load matching was a strategic way to save money and provide more effective carrier services by quickly finding carriers and available drivers to ensure efficient load fulfillment.

Digital Load Matching

As you might imagine, manual load matching isn’t always viable for smaller or medium-sized operations, especially those without the manpower to ensure an optimised carrier service. Even if they could, some considerations could go unnoticed due to human bias or just get lost in the chaos of day-to-day operations. Resulting in more costs for businesses.

In response, companies started developing digital load-matching services to streamline these tasks. Digital load matching platforms are capable of automating many daily tasks, integrating processes like tracking and payments, and increasing efficiency for shippers, brokers, and carriers. These platforms allow shippers and brokers to access a large selection of carriers from a single location, significantly reducing the time it takes to find a load match.

They can also integrate with smartphones or tracking devices on vehicles to provide real-time location updates, further improving operational visibility. Choosing the right digital load matching platform matters for operational efficiency, growth, and cost savings. It’s also important to find a balance between redundancy for safety and efficiency to reduce costs in digital load matching.

It uses AI to perform real-time matches for loads with carriers. This kind of software can determine the capacity and efficiency of different routes as well as the use of vehicles.

It can also relay accurate price estimates for these services in advance. That way, neither carriers nor customers came back short-changed.

How Digital Load Matching Works

Digital load matching comprises various stages:

• Route planning

• Load planning

• Loading and unloading

Digital load matching analyzes the demand profile of shipments to optimize energy and load management throughout these stages.

Digital load matching also utilizes mobile-friendly technology solutions to match shipper demand with carrier capacity.

That said, let’s take a closer look at each of these steps in turn:

Digital load matching is generally faster and easier than traditional load matching techniques.

How Load Matching Differs from Capacity Matching

Capacity sourcing is all about identifying and securing available capacity from carriers to meet the needs of shippers. This means having a clear understanding of which carriers have the right vehicle type, available capacity, and are ready to move freight when and where it’s needed. Load matching, on the other hand, is the process of pairing these available carriers with specific loads based on load requirements, routes, and timing.

When these two processes work hand-in-hand, businesses can optimize their logistics operations by ensuring every load is matched with the most suitable carrier. This reduces empty miles, lowers fuel costs, and helps companies deliver on customer expectations. Digital freight matching and load matching software play a crucial role here, providing real-time visibility into available capacity and market demand. With these tools, brokers and shippers can quickly find the best match for every shipment, streamline the process, and keep costs under control.

Best Practices for Load Matching

To get the most out of your load matching process, it’s important to follow industry best practices that drive efficiency, reduce costs, and enhance customer satisfaction. Here are some of them.

• Start by leveraging digital freight matching platforms and load matching software to automate and streamline the process.

• Use data and analytics to inform your decisions, ensuring you’re always matching loads with the most suitable carriers based on real-time information.

• Build strong relationships with both carriers and shippers to secure reliable capacity and foster trust.

• Focus on minimising empty miles and reducing fuel costs by optimising routes and consolidating shipments where possible.

• Provide real-time visibility and regular updates to all stakeholders, including customers, carriers, and shippers, to build confidence and ensures smooth operations.

Common Challenges in Load Matching

While load matching offers significant benefits, it also comes with its share of challenges. The logistics industry is highly fragmented, making it difficult to gain full visibility into available capacity and load requirements. Manual processes can be time-consuming and prone to errors, especially when trying to find the most suitable carrier for each shipment. Managing different vehicle types, capacities, and demand profiles adds another layer of complexity.

Other common hurdles include optimizing routes to minimize empty miles and reduce fuel costs, ensuring the security and integrity of shipments, and keeping up with growing customer demands. Limited access to real-time data can lead to delays, inefficiencies, and increased costs. However, by adopting digital freight matching platforms and load matching software, businesses can overcome these obstacles. These technologies provide the tools needed to streamline operations, enhance efficiency, and deliver a higher level of customer satisfaction, even in the face of significant industry challenges.

Why Use a Load Matching Software

Save Money

The most obvious benefit of a load matching approach is that it can save companies money.

By cutting down on empty miles wasted by carriers and reducing fuel costs and other transportation expenses by planning more efficient routes, you can save money.

An analysis of empty miles – carriers that drive without loads – discovered that empty miles accounted for 33% of total miles driven by carriers.

By this estimate, there is potentially an untapped source of revenue available for companies that can optimise their carrier systems with load matching.

Save Time

With digital load matching, in particular, companies can significantly speed up the time it takes to get a load match. Companies no longer have to spend time-consuming hours matching loads themselves or contacting matching services.

Instead, the entire process can be automated so that matches can occur instantaneously.

Some AI matching software can even make predictive matching guesses in advance, so companies can have security that there is a carrier for their goods.

Moreover, load matching technology can integrate onboard vehicles and mobile phones to better monitor the efficiency of various routes.

Boost Reliability

Another consideration when improving a carrier service is that companies can provide better assurances for their customers with more stable and predictable routes.

Many services now have online platforms where customers can see their product on the route, giving them a sense of trust in the carrier service.

Is It Right for You?

Only more prominent companies had the resources to carry out comprehensive freight or load matching in the past. Smaller companies had the option of paying matching services.

Still, these prices were often too high to be accessible to everyone. With modern digital load matching, it is far easier and cheaper to match a load to the suitable carrier in ways less prone to human error.

With CNBC’s Joel Dreyfuss predicting that “The next Uber will come from the $1.2 trillion global truck and shipping industry”, why not see what load matching could do for you?

Ready to Start Using a Load Matching Software?

Book a free demonstration with Transvirtual today to see what this type of software can do for your business, or if you’d prefer to have a chat with our expert team, we can help find ways to optimise and save your business time and money!

Frequently Asked Questions on Load Matching