Carrier Network

A shipper's carrier network is the full roster of transportation providers they've vetted, approved, and configured for freight tendering. It includes direct contract carriers, backup carriers, freight brokers, and any specialty providers for specific equipment types, temperature requirements, or geographies. The breadth and quality of your carrier network directly determines your ability to secure competitive rates, reliable capacity, and consistent service across every lane you ship.

Building an effective carrier network means balancing coverage, competition, and manageability. You want enough carriers per lane to create rate competition and ensure backup capacity when your primary carrier rejects a tender, but not so many that you're spreading volume too thin to earn meaningful rate commitments. Most shippers aim for two to four carriers per high-volume lane – a primary, a secondary, and one or two overflow options – with additional broker coverage for spot needs and seasonal surges.

The real challenge isn't building the network – it's activating it efficiently on every load. If your carrier network exists in spreadsheets, routing guides that nobody follows, and rate agreements buried in email, you're not actually leveraging the network you've built. The whole point of assembling a diverse carrier base is to query it dynamically on every shipment – comparing contract rates, spot rates, and broker options in real time – so every load moves at the best available combination of price and service.

Network health also requires ongoing maintenance: monitoring carrier performance, refreshing rates through annual RFPs, pruning underperforming providers, and continuously onboarding new carriers to fill coverage gaps or introduce competition on stale lanes.