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Life before load boards

  • Aug 15, 2018
  • Chad Boblett

Mark Boyer has spent his whole career in the trucking and logistics industry, with a front row seat for all kinds of new technologies, including many products from DAT.

As DAT celebrates its 40th year, we reminisced with Boyer, who serves as Vice President of Brokerage for Keller Logistics in Defiance, Ohio. Keller is an asset-based brokerage with a 150-truck fleet, plus packaging and warehousing services.

Load board reduces leg work Boyer's first encounter with DAT came in the 1980s when he was working as a dispatcher in Toledo, Ohio, for a regional truckload carrier. When his company had overflow freight, he would drive down to Exit 5 on the Ohio Turnpike where there was a concentration of truck stops.

"About two days a week I would go down there and just talk to the drivers," Boyer said. "If they were empty, I'd ask them what direction they were going and see if they wanted a load."

Meanwhile, the Dial-A-Truck (DAT) service launched at Jubitz Truck Stop in Portland, Oregon, with a video monitor that displayed available loads. The new electronic system gradually replaced handwritten notes pinned to bulletin boards — often called "load boards" — at truck stops across the country.

Boyer's company starting posting its loads on the DAT monitors. He didn't need to visit the truck stops anymore, because truckers were able to view and accept his company's loads even while he was back at the office.

Source:- DAT.

AVAAL partners with DAT to offer a special on the TruckersEdge Load Board to its members. Sign up for TruckersEdge today and get your first 30 days free by signing up at https://bit.ly/2IbuHhk. This offer is available to new TruckersEdge subscribers only.