XTRA Lease News

Admit it. You’ve always thought renting a supplemental trailer is just a necessary evil of doing business. You rent it, load it, haul it, unload it, and take it back (when you can find it.)

Yes, trailer tracking gives you greater visibility into your trailers’ whereabouts. But today that visibility means more than just knowing where your trailers are once a day. It means you can view trailers while on the move and near-real-time events, such as when a trailer arrives at a landmark or at its destination, or where a trailer’s located at any given time.

Near-real-time reporting helps you stay on top of your supplemental trailers and quickly see if they’re productive or not. And it gives you the ability to proactively report to your customers how their shipment is progressing.

What could that kind of timely data do for your bottom line?

Using today’s trailer tracking, you can

1. Improve how you estimate delivery times, which, in turn, can increase your on-time deliveries. (You said the trailer would be at the destination between 1:45 and 2 pm. It arrived at 1:50 pm. You just made an on-time delivery.) The more on-time deliveries you make, the better your reputation, the easier it becomes to win business from your customers, the more money you make.


2. Provide your customers door-to-door cargo visibility. When you know a trailer arrived at a landmark, what kind of good reputation could you build if you shot that customer an update on that shipment? Today’s trailer tracking helps you demonstrate continuous control of goods, which increases customer satisfaction and trust. Accurate door-to-door data is crucial in providing the best fleet services possible to your customers.


3. Figure out quickly which customers hold up your drivers and trailers waiting for their shipment to be ready. That kind of information gives you options. You can build goodwill with that customer by pointing out that you don’t charge for detention time. You can actually start charging for detention time. Or you can realize that particular customer’s business isn’t as profitable as you need it to be and maybe choose to “retire” the customer from your book of business. And any of those choices can be great for your bottom line.


4. Increase trailer productivity by identifying dormant trailers and putting them to use earning money for you somewhere else in your network. Also avoid wasting time searching for available trailers since you can easily see which ones are idle. And you can pinpoint a trailer’s location for your driver (which has the added benefit of reducing driver frustration!)


5. Return idle rental trailers faster because you know when they’re idle and where they are RIGHT NOW. That’s how today’s trailer tracking significantly reduces your risk of losing a rental trailer in your network. So the money you would have spent on rentals (or on making your lessor whole for that trailer you lost), stays in the plus column.


6. Improve cargo security. Continuous location tracking and status updates enhance protection for your trailers and cargo. A modern trailer tracking system helps prevent theft or recover stolen trailers and high-value loads quickly.


7. Stop misuse or misdirections as they occur, rather than after the fact, when they may be difficult to correct. Today’s trailer tracking notifies you that something’s wrong and needs your immediate attention. And knowing when trailers deviate from one of your freight lanes is half the battle.

Data is the reason trailer tracking can increase your profit.

And all of that drives profit to your bottom line.