Routing Guide

A routing guide is the operational rulebook that governs how freight gets assigned to carriers. For each lane in a shipper's network, the routing guide specifies a ranked list of carriers – primary, secondary, tertiary – along with their contracted rates and service expectations. When a load needs to move, the logistics team tenders to the primary carrier first. If that carrier declines, the load cascades to the next carrier in sequence.

The routing guide is built from RFP results and reflects the shipper's strategic decisions about carrier mix: balancing cost against service quality, diversifying across carriers to avoid concentration risk, and aligning capacity commitments with actual volume forecasts. A good routing guide also includes business rules beyond simple carrier ranking – mode preferences, equipment requirements, customer-specific routing restrictions, and hazmat or temperature-control mandates.

The problem with routing guides is that they degrade over time. Market conditions shift, carrier capacity changes, and the rates that were competitive at RFP time may no longer reflect reality. If a shipper doesn't actively monitor and update their routing guide, they end up with high tender rejection rates on some lanes (carriers refusing loads because the rate is below market) and overpaying on others (because the rate is above market but no one checked). Routing guide compliance – the percentage of loads that actually move with the assigned primary carrier at the contracted rate – is a key metric for measuring procurement effectiveness.

The most effective routing guides are dynamic rather than static. They're updated regularly based on carrier performance data, market benchmarking, and tender acceptance patterns – not just refreshed once a year at RFP time.