Managed Transportation

Managed transportation services (MTS) providers have planners in a control tower using transportation management system technology, who plan and execute loads on behalf of their shipper customers.
The primary driver of growth is the strong return on investment these solutions provide. In a survey, ARC asked, “If you were to stop working with your managed service provider and went back to doing things the way you used to before this relationship, how much would your freight costs be raised or lowered in the following year?” The most frequent answer was that without the managed transportation arrangement, their freight costs would rise by 12 percent or more.
The main competition to working with a managed transportation service provider is for a shipper to implement a transportation management system. The freight savings and service improvements between these two solutions are similar. However, shippers may perceive implementing a transportation management system as having lower risks as customer service is seen as strategic. On the other hand, the downside of implementing a transportation management system is if key planners lead, performance can degrade significantly. In contrast, a managed transportation service provider has a large bench of planners.