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Uber Freight: technology can mitigate impact of port strikes

containers being loaded on truck at dock

There are no magic solutions, but alternative routings and dynamic pricing can help, Ron says.

Ben Ames
By Ben AmesOct 01, 2024
Ben Ames
Ben Ames has spent 20 years as a journalist since starting out as a daily newspaper reporter in Pennsylvania in 1995. From 1999 forward, he has focused on business and technology reporting for a number of trade journals, beginning when he joined Design News and Modern Materials Handling magazines. Ames is author of the trail guide "Hiking Massachusetts" and is a graduate of the Columbia School of Journalism.
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The onset of a strike today by dockworkers at U.S. East and Gulf coast ports has left shippers in a “predicament” of choosing between different workarounds, but the latest transportation technology offers them some creative alternatives, according to Uber Freight CEO Lior Ron.

Confronted with the closed ports, most companies can either route their imports to standard East Coast destinations and wait for the strike to clear, or else re-route those containers to West Coast sites, incurring a three week delay for extra sailing time plus another week required to truck those goods back east, Ron said in an interview at the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP)’s EDGE Conference in Nashville.

However, Uber Freight says its latest platform updates offer a series of mitigation options, including alternative routings, pre-booked allocation and volume during peak season, and providing daily visibility reports on shipments impacted by routings via U.S. east and gulf coast ports. And Ron said the company can also leverage its pool of some 2.3 million truck drivers who have downloaded its smartphone app, targeting them with freight hauling opportunities in the affected regions by pricing those loads “appropriately” through its surge-pricing model.

“If this [strike] continues a month, we will see severe disruptions,” Ron said. “So we can offer them alternatives. We say, if one door is closed, we can open another door? But even with that, there are no magic solutions.”

TransportationArticleTechnology
cscmp edge 2024uber freightcscmp - council of supply chain management professionals
TransportationArticleTechnology
cscmp edge 2024uber freightcscmp - council of supply chain management professionals

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