Scheduling Standards Consortium set to address needed freight API standards

Earlier this week, three household names in freight transportation and logistics announced they are partnering up in the name of standardization by establishing what they said is the first set of freight-focused appointment scheduling application programming interface (API) standards.

The three companies—San Francisco-based Uber Freight, a subsidiary of the ubiquitous, ride-sharing service Uber, whose proprietary app matches trucking companies with loads to haul; Seattle-based digital freight network Convoy; and Lowell, Ark.-based trucking and intermodal services bellwether J.B. Hunt—have banded together to launch the Scheduling Standards Consortium (SSC), which they said will focus on solving freight transportation scheduling challenges by establishing industry standards geared towards “simplifying scheduling, improving automation for businesses, and generating industry-wide efficiencies.”

What’s more, SSC explained that its founding members’ respective skillsets and services put an onus on the urgency currently needed to standardize how information is exchanged between facilities and transportation providers to be able to schedule shipments.

And the SSC noted that a key driver for its formation centers around how scheduling system and interface fragmentation represents what it called a “point of friction” among carriers, brokers, and shippers.

“As the industry turns increasingly to an integrated network of providers and solutions to manage the end-to-end lifecycle of each shipment, it’s become important to define and share a consistent data architecture and API standard for the distribution of scheduling information,” it said. “The SSC’s objectives are to define an API standard for sharing scheduling information, implement standardized interfaces to enable integrations in existing systems, and advocate for the standard across the industry. The standard will bring more autonomy and resiliency to the movement of goods, making it easier to book and manage appointments, optimize processes for drivers, shippers and receivers, and drive operational efficiencies for the industry at large.” 

As for next steps, the SSC said it is focused on bringing other industry stakeholders, including brokers, 3PLs, TMS and WMS vendors, and others on board. And, from a timing perspective, it said that the SSC’s initial standards and documentation, which will focus on full truckload freight, will be made available to its members by the first quarter of next year.

The SSC’s founding member executives weighed in on its goals and objectives below:

“One of the most complicated and consequential things about being efficient in freight is setting up pickup and drop-off appointments. Every year the industry sets approximately 1.5 billion appointments, and scheduling inefficiencies slows everything down and creates a lot of waste. Freight runs 24/7, and, for most situations, every hour counts,” says Dan Lewis, Convoy’s CEO and co-founder. “Scheduling is a tech problem at the end of the day. When all the trucks are plugged into a digital network, the industry can better orchestrate freight needs with data-informed systems. A Standard API-based approach allows companies to access the latest data and make smart decisions to increase efficiency, reduce empty miles and waste, lower costs, and improve service outcomes. This is the future of freight.”;

“Technology has ushered in a new era for transportation – new players, new apps, new platforms, new services. Yet, our industry remains extremely fragmented,” said Spencer Frazier, executive vice president of sales and marketing at J.B. Hunt. “We want to change that, starting today with the three of us and hopefully many more providers in the coming months. We want to create an open exchange of data so that the hundreds of TMS and digital freight platforms can communicate at a level where we can help one another when needed. The voice of our customers is clear - collaboration will drive progress. Our challenge is to make the systems they use daily work together to generate greater value and efficiency for their supply chains.”

“Logistics is rapidly evolving to be more realtime and intelligent at every point of execution. The implementation of APIs to simplify execution of manual tasks like scheduling is revolutionizing how shippers and carriers plan, manage, and execute shipments,” said Bill Driegert, co-founder and Head of Operations at Uber Freight. “We are at a critical inflection point of adoption, and if we don't align on standards, we will create more work for everyone in the coming years. Everyone wins if we can align on common ways of interfacing. In doing so, we minimize operation friction and fragmentation and unlock a more fluid and optimized market for shippers and carriers to move goods.”