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Three percent of truckers said they regularly receive detention pay.
- $4 announced on Thursday that $4 using its app can rate the retailers and warehouses they work with. Shippers will also be able to rate truckers in the coming weeks.
- During the two-month pilot period, Uber Freight amassed more than 10,000 reviews from truck drivers.
- That could help solve the pervasive issue of unpaid detention time, in which $4 lose $1.3 billion annually waiting at warehouses for loads.
Truck driver Bill Hieatt spends hours nearly every day at work not getting paid.
"At some of these companies, it's like being an indentured servant," Hieatt, who has been a trucker for 20 years, told Business Insider.
Truckers such as Hieatt are expected to spend hours at warehouses waiting for their shipments to load or unload. Warehouses often do not have their shipments ready for truckers, even when they're on time, and that results in truck drivers being "detained."
Those shippers, which might include small businesses and major retailers, should load or unload in a two-hour window in accordance with $4. After that, shippers are expected pay an hourly rate for every hour that a truck driver is detained at a warehouse.
Except they usually don't. According to $4, administered by the freight marketplace $4, of drivers from 257 trucking companies, only 3% said they receive detention pay for at least 90% of their claims to the shippers.
"Detention time is nonexistent most of the times," Hieatt said.
Read more: $4
Losing out on that pay is critical for truckers because they're usually paid per mile. All told, truck drivers lose $1.1 billion to $1.3 billion in pay every year because of detention, according to $4 by the Department of
A new feature from Uber Freight could help combat that
Uber Freight, which launched $4, matches shippers and truckers through an online marketplace. Typically truckers have to work through freight brokers, who take a commission of 15% to 20% for the shipment.
On Thursday, Uber Freight announced that truck drivers using its app can rate the retailers and warehouses they work with. The service has already amassed more than 10,000 unique facility reviews from truck drivers during the two-month pilot period.
Courtesy of Uber Freight
Here's what Uber Freight's rating page will look like for truck drivers who are considering working with a shipper.
Xinfeng Le, the Uber Freight carrier product lead, told Business Insider that truckers are most keen on rating shippers based on their ability to load and unload quickly, as well as their availability of parking, food options, bathrooms, and so on.
"This ties back to what drivers actually care about," Le told Business Insider. "When they're at a facility, they want to be treated with respect."
Allowing truckers to rate facilities will promote "transparent and collaborative environment" in transportation, Le added. Truck drivers will be able to point out which retailers are holding up drivers, and then those retailers can address issues to ensure the people who move their goods are being treated respectfully.
Courtesy of Uber Freight
"Driver detention is an urgent issue that must be addressed by our industry. It's a matter of fairness," $4, a senior vice president at $4. "Many shippers and receivers are lax about their dock operations, but it's the carriers and drivers who are forced to pay for that inefficiency."
Shippers will be able to rate truck drivers in the coming weeks. Anheuser-Busch, Land O'Lakes, Niagara Bottling, Colgate-Palmolive, and other retailers are all active users of Uber Freight, the company told Business Insider.
Nixing detention times is good for people and for businesses
Uber Freight is one of many startups in the trucking community that's working to eliminate the middleman in freight brokerage - such as Transfix, Convoy, and Next Trucking. The founders of those companies have previously told Business Insider that automated freight brokerage can also help benefit truckers.
But doing right by truck drivers isn't just good for the 1.8 million men and women who haul freight for a living. $4 descends upon the US, it's becoming necessary for retailers to ensure that truckers are willing to work with them.
Read more: $4
The van-load-to-truck ratio peaked last year, $4. In June 2018, there were 9.9 loads for every available truck. That ratio was 5.6 loads-to-truck in June 2017 and 2.9 the previous June.
$4 CEO Drew McElroy said shortage of capacity is forcing companies to drastically reconsider how they treat their drivers. If retailers don't change their behavior, McElroy said no one would be around to move their goods.
"There are places that trucking companies will not pick up from - I don't care if you pay me twice what the guy across the street is paying me, I'm just not going there," McElroy $4. In October, 80% of truckers said there are shippers they specifically refuse to work with.
"And if you're in the business of selling widgets and if you can't psychically move your widgets, you're dead."