Freight KPIs

Freight KPIs are the quantitative benchmarks shippers use to evaluate whether their transportation operations are performing as expected. They span cost, service, and compliance dimensions, and together they form the measurement framework that separates data-driven logistics teams from ones operating on feel and anecdote.

The most common freight KPIs include on-time delivery and pickup rates, OTIF, cost per mile, cost per shipment, cost per pound or pallet, tender acceptance rate, claims ratio, dwell time, freight spend as a percentage of revenue, and accessorial charge frequency. Which KPIs matter most depends on the shipper's priorities – a company with heavy retail compliance exposure will obsess over OTIF, while one focused on margin improvement will watch cost per mile and accessorial trends more closely.

The challenge isn't identifying which KPIs to track – most logistics professionals know the important ones. The challenge is getting clean, timely data to calculate them. When shipment data lives across carrier portals, email threads, spreadsheets, and ERP systems, assembling an accurate KPI dashboard is a manual project that often doesn't happen until quarter-end, if at all. By then, the data is historical and the opportunity to act on it has passed.

Effective freight KPI programs require two things: automated data collection from across the carrier network, and dashboards that surface trends and exceptions in real time. When a logistics manager can see this morning that tender acceptance on a key lane dropped 15 points this week, they can act today – not discover it in a quarterly review.