Our Story
$24,595.
That was our bill.
Problem was our quote was only $15,200. whoops.
What went awry on this 15' wide load from the Pacific Northwest to Minnesota?
Escorts.
We modelled for only a few thousand in escorts.
(I know you're doing the math -- yes it was still a bad quote anyways, but that's beside the point)
It was construction season and not only did this cause us to have 25% out-of-route miles, it pushed us further south into states we didn't anticipate running in when modelling costs. More construction & larger load = more likely to encounter significant OOR miles and wildcard routes.
Here's the other kicker... the construction caused detours routed to 2-Lane and guess what? This state's 2-lane thresholds were significantly more strict than their interstate. Meaning we needed 2 escorts across a huge state we didn't even initially plan to be in. Ouch.
Another lesson learned.
You cannot simply add escorts at will, especially in desolate unpopulated areas of the country. If your escort requirements are 2, 0, 2 -- unless that 0 is near significantly populated areas AND is a very large stretch of miles -- plan on running 2, 2, 2.
Our built-in ESL (Escort Smoothing Logic) in the OSOW calculator has 2 options to adjust for this.
So we built the calculator that would've saved us.
When we set out to build this, we wanted to correctly model what our quote should have been. And it can, because we have these features:
Flip any state's road tier to whatever you want
By the way, did you know that CO, CA, and ID have 3, 5, and 5 road tiers (colors) respectively? It's not always about interstate vs non-interstate. And it doesn't make sense to map the entire route to non-interstate when it's usually just the final stretch that could be any of multiple road tiers.
Force the route through a specific place
Model the real route, not the ideal one. Add waypoints, force specific states, and account for the detours that actually happen.
Real-life escort modelling
Smoothing of the count, retainers, hotels, minimums. Not just what the state says - what the move actually costs.
Our Goal
Be the most accurate, detailed, and quickest way to estimate OSOW load costs.
Bring OSOW carriers and brokers together through our directory so these loads stay off the boards. Build a network.
Lessen the pain and learning curve for carriers and brokers to step into this world.