This fireside chat recap is from Day 1 of FreightWaves’ F3: Future of Freight Festival live event in Chattanooga, Tennessee. For more information on the event, click here.

FIRESIDE CHAT TOPIC: How carriers can navigate a volatile freight market

DETAILS: FreightWaves’ Kaylee Nix spoke with Bill Driegert, co-founder of Uber Freight, at the F3: Future of Freight Festival about changes in the freight market. He also discussed Uber Freight’s acquisition of Transplace.

SPEAKER: Bill Driegert, co-founder and head of operations at Uber Freight

BIO: Prior to joining Uber, Driegert served as COO of Pillow Homes. He also spent time at Amazon as director of planning and innovation with oversight over new initiatives in final-mile delivery and truckload. Driegert was a founding team member of Coyote Logistics, which was acquired by UPS.

KEY QUOTES FROM DRIEGERT: 

“It’s been an incredibly volatile market over the last two and a half years and very difficult for carriers to predict what’s going to happen in the next six months.”

“This year, we’ve seen rates collapse; they’ve dropped over 30% since January. We’ve seen spot volume just disappear and acceptance rates are now 95%, plus no freight is rolling on the spot market. If you’re a carrier, it’s very hard to stabilize your earnings to get consistent cash flow in a market like that.”

On Uber Freight’s acquisition of Transplace: “Ultimately, it’s two exceptional companies that come from very different sides of the market. Transplace is operating on behalf of the shipper and that’s their center of gravity. We will continue to invest in building those capabilities. But now we can add in all of the execution capability of Uber Freight.”

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