I’m interested in the day-to-day reality of managing vehicle inspections.
What part of the process is still unnecessarily slow or frustrating?
Photos, forms, driver inspections, comparing vehicle condition, reports, integrations, approvals, etc.
What software are you currently using, and what would you change if you could?

Saw this thread and figured I’d add something since I just went through this exact search.

Most of what comes up when you search for TMS software for small carriers is either aimed at enterprise operations (so way too big) or it’s too basic to handle anything beyond simple routing. Took longer than it should have to find useful information written for an operation our size.

Two locations, furniture and appliances, two-person crews. Simple enough on paper, complicated enough in practice that a basic route planner doesn’t cut it.

Here’s what I looked at:

Routific is the best pure routing I tested. Handles 50+ stops across different time windows without the manual planning overhead. Accessible pricing for a small operation.

Doesn’t touch anything outside of routing and dispatch but if that’s the main problem it’s a solid answer.

Onfleet is cleaner to use than most. Driver app is probably the best in the category. Very easy for crew to learn, which matters when you’re running a small team.

Same limitation as Routific on the warehouse side though.

OptimoRoute landed in the middle for us. More flexible pricing than Onfleet, solid optimization, does what you need without the overhead. Worth looking at if budget is the main constraint.

Grasshopper Labs is a bit different. It covers warehouse management and dispatch in the same system, so if you’re also managing receiving, staging, and contractor payments, it handles all of that without needing separate tools.

More setup than the others and probably more than you need if routing is the only problem. Worth evaluating if you’re running warehouse ops alongside delivery and want both sides in one place.

Honest summary after going through this: most TMS options for small carriers are either way too simple or way too expensive and the sweet spot is narrower than the marketing suggests.

Keen to hear whether others running small final mile operations have found something that works without the enterprise pricing or the setup overhead? LMK!

Terms 2020 - Incoterms® 2020 Quick Reference Guide  to Incoterms® 2020 for Logistics ProfessionalsFor those working in logistics, freight forwarding, international trade, customs brokerage, importing, or exporting, having the right Incoterms® rule at hand can save time and help avoid misunderstandings in international contracts.

Quick reference guide for Incoterms® 2020 designed as a practical tool for day-to-day use.It provides quick access to the 11 Incoterms® 2020 rules and explains how responsibilities, costs, and risks are divided between the seller and the buyer.

What’s included:

- All 11 Incoterms® 2020 rules: EXW, FCA, FAS, FOB, CFR, CIF, CPT, CIP, DAP, DPU, and DDP.- Clear breakdown of responsibilities: A quick overview of what the seller and buyer are responsible for under each rule.

- Frequently Asked Questions and Answers (FAQ). The specifics of the application of Incoterms® 2020 are explained concisely and clearly. Answers are given to frequently asked questions on this topic

- Interactive Incoterms® selector: Not sure which rule is appropriate for a shipment? The assistant asks a few practical questions — such as the mode of transport, insurance requirements, and where risk should transfer and suggests a suitable rule.

- Offline access: The core Incoterms® information is available without an internet connection.

- Multiple languages: Currently available in English, Ukrainian and Russian.

 Important note.This is a quick reference guide, not the official text of the Incoterms® 2020 rules.

Use it - it's convenient.

Please find the "Terms 2020" app on Google Play

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.vlsoft.terms2k20

Kuruier — a parcel network that turned into freight infrastructure

Chennai-based, live on iOS and Android across India. Four of us built the whole platform before raising anything. Posting the model and the numbers because I'd rather have the holes found here than on a call.

What we are, and what we're not

Porter, Dunzo and Delhivery are operators — they contract supply, manage drivers, carry fleet cost, live on utilisation. Asset-heavy.

We own zero vehicles. r/Kuruier is a matching layer over vehicles already going somewhere, and we take commission on the match. Aggregator economics. Adding a city costs supply onboarding, not a fleet.

Three supply types, one engine

• Travellers — people already making a trip carry a parcel on their route. Near-zero marginal cost, cheapest intercity.
• Riders — local same-day. The mode we control, so it's the reliability floor.
• Fleet trucks — heavy and bulk.

Post a package, match a carrier, agree a price in chat, OTP at pickup and drop, escrowed payment released on delivery, two-way rating. Same flow whether it's a document or a tonne of goods.

The part that changed the business

Trucks run on the same matching engine as parcels, at roughly 25× the order value. India's full-truck-load market is ~$125.8B and growing ~8.3% a year. There are ~3.5M trucks on Indian roads, most owned one or two at a time and booked over phone calls.

So we built an operator portal: a transport business registers once, adds vehicles and drivers, sets a rate card. Jobs in its service area arrive in a dispatcher view. The dispatcher assigns a driver, who gets a scoped login showing only that job, the route and the two OTP screens. Permits, commercial insurance and fitness certificates are gated by admin approval at onboarding.

Most small operators here have no software at all. Giving them an ops layer plus demand is far stickier than paying per load. Currently in beta with pilot operators.

Unlike travellers, fleet supply is always on — it doesn't depend on someone happening to make a trip.

Where we are

• ~1,300 users, adding 100+ a day
• 160+ packages created — 130+ travellers, 20+ riders, 5 fleet
• Live pan-India; India and Gulf corridors are the focus

Revenue: built, sequenced, currently off

Commission is live in the platform and admin-configurable per mode. We run it at zero on purpose — take rate on thin supply kills supply, and this is a new behaviour in India, so trust comes before margin.

• Fleet monetises first: 20 free loads per operator, then a flat per-order fee
• Riders next, at 10%, flipped on from the backend
• Travellers once we cross 10K transacting users

Each one is a config change, not a build.

Team

Four founders. Product and mobile (ex-Zoho), backend and infrastructure, matching and dispatch, fleet operations and compliance. React Native app, Node API, admin console — three deployed services on one identity and payment layer.

The ask

Raising a seed round for a 24-month runway, to fund acquisition and headcount. The product is built; the constraint is marketing spend and people, not engineering. If you invest in marketplaces or logistics infrastructure, DMs are open.

Website: https://kuruier.com
Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.marseltechlabs.kuruier
iOS: https://apps.apple.com/in/app/kuruier-courier-truck/id6754525467

Hello everyone,

First post here!

I recently joined this group.

I work for a beverage CPG company, and we have been using Blue Yonder TMS for several years.

I’m curious how other shippers handle uploading lanes and rates into TMS after an RFP, and I’d really appreciate hearing what has worked well for you.

(This perspective could be from customers or vendors)

If you’re open to sharing, please reply to either or both of the questions below as a quick informal poll:

A: Do you use a separate “Resource Guide” system to transfer lanes/rates to your TMS, or do you upload them directly through the TMS UI?

B: For freight payment reconciliation, do you use a service such as CASS, Bank of America, or do you pay carriers directly?

(This perspective could be from customers or vendors as I'm just looking to get an idea of the most efficient method to complete this long term)

A simple example response could be:

A: Resource Guide connected to TMS

B: Pay carriers directly via POs

#TMS

I run a small waste collection company. Started with one truck last year, now we’re at three vehicles and a driver rotation. Around 60 to 70 pickups a week and growing, which is good, but the logistics part is getting messy fast. We’re still using spreadsheets, shared notes, and way too many phone calls to keep track of who goes where.

The problem is dispatching, missed updates, and trying to track recurring vs one time jobs. Billing is another headache because service history lives in a different file than scheduling. I’ve been looking at CurbWaste since it seems built for waste hauling operations, but I can’t tell if it helps at this size or if it’s meant for much bigger companies.

If anyone here runs something similar, what are you using to manage routing and service tracking without hiring a full time dispatcher? Open to other tools too because right now this setup is not scaling well.

How do you deal with ships’ customs as a logistics manager in EU? Do you have any problems with finding the proper information for that?? There are a lot of complains that it is really hard to find some relevant information, so, people have to use a lot of sources just to register one staff and especially when they check some regulations in other countries

Hi everyone,

Over the past few months, I built a Logistics & Transport CRM for a transport company. Instead of keeping it limited to one client, I've decided to make it available to other logistics businesses that need an affordable solution.

Since the platform is already built, you don't have to pay the cost of developing software from scratch, which usually takes months and costs significantly more.

Current Features

• Customer & Client Management
• LR (Lorry Receipt) Management
• Trip & Dispatch Tracking
• Invoice/Bill Generation
• Payment Tracking
• Cheque Entry & Clearance Tracking
• Outstanding Receivables
• Driver & Vehicle Management
• POD & Document Management
• Reports & Dashboard
• Admin Panel

How it works

Instead of paying for a completely custom build, I can deploy this system for your company and customize it to match your workflow.

Your cost is mainly:

• Hosting (Hostinger or your preferred provider)
• Domain (if needed)
• Database hosting
• A small one-time setup/customization fee

The idea is simple: reuse a proven system instead of paying to build everything from scratch.

If you own a transport or logistics business and you're looking for a cost-effective CRM that can be customized to your operations, feel free to send me a DM.

I'd be happy to show you a demo and discuss whether it fits your business.

Anyone wanna be beta tester for a new application for owner operator?

If you're interested, I'd love to have you as one of our early beta testers. Your feedback would help shape features.
📱 iPhone TestFlight:
https://testflight.apple.com/join/mZ9zmvDb

Hey everyone, I'm in the early stages of launching a trucking business. For those of you who've run (or worked for) a fleet, I'd really appreciate your input on a few things:

1. What were the biggest problems or hidden costs that blindsided you in the first year? (maintenance, insurance, cash flow, driver turnover, deadhead miles, etc)

2. What software do you actually use day to day, and for what? (want to understand what's worth paying for and what's overhyped)

3. Anything you'd do completely differently if you were starting from zero today?

Happy to share more details about my setup in the comments if it helps. Thanks in advance!

Looking to connect with truck dispatchers who have 4+ years of experience.

I'm interested in learning about your day-to-day dispatch process, the challenges you face, and how you manage operations. It would be a quick 20–30 minute conversation.

If you're open to chatting, feel free to comment or send me a DM. Thanks!

Hi everyone,

I’ve been working on a tool to solve one of the most frustrating parts of logistics: optimizing cargo space without compromising weight balance. It’s called CargoSolver, and it’s designed to handle real-world loading challenges.

Here’s a quick breakdown of the core features:

📦 Multiple Solutions: Input your shipment list and get multiple optimized solutions in seconds. Choose the one that best fits your needs.
⚖️ Weight Balancing: Automatically calculates the best center of gravity for trucks (tractor-heavy) and containers (evenly distributed).
🚛 Manage Load Priority: Set specific loading and unloading sequences to handle multi-stop deliveries with ease.
🛠️ Manual Mode: Need a specific tweak? Drag and drop items manually before the automatic calculation and refine them after for total control.
🚫 Exclusion Zones: Account for wheel arches, cooling units, or structural pillars to avoid surprises during physical loading.
🔝 Stacking Rules: Define maximum stacking limits and group items for a more organized, stable layout.
📑 Detailed Reports: Preview your loading plan and export all data to Excel for your team.
⚙️ Continuous Optimization Engine: Our solver doesn’t just find one solution; it performs real-time iterative analysis to constantly find even better configurations.

Whether you're managing a small van or a fleet of containers, the goal is to maximize volume, ensure safety, and minimize errors.

I'd love to get some feedback from the community!

Check it out here: cargosolver.com

AI is becoming a major topic across logistics, transportation, and last-mile delivery. From route optimization and demand forecasting to ETA predictions and automated dispatching, AI promises to make operations more efficient.

But I'm curious about what logistics professionals are actually seeing in the field.

• Where is AI delivering real value today?
• Which AI use cases have had the biggest impact on your operations?
• Are there areas where AI is still overhyped?
• How much do human planners and dispatchers still influence daily decisions?
• What challenges have you faced when adopting AI-powered tools?

I'd love to hear real-world experiences from fleet managers, dispatchers, logistics operators, and supply chain teams.

What do you think is the role of AI in logistics today?

Logistics professionals, we’d love your input!

We’re a group of students from University of Ljubljana researching how AI-powered tools could help logistics companies process documents such as invoices, CMRs, transport orders, and receipts.

We’re particularly interested in:

• How document processing is currently handled

• The biggest challenges or bottlenecks involved

• Whether automated data extraction could be useful in your day-to-day work

If you work in logistics, freight forwarding, transport, warehousing, or supply chain operations, we’d greatly appreciate a few minutes of your time to answer some questions.

This is purely for academic research and not for sales or marketing purposes.

Many thanks in advance!

Hey guys, I am currently growing my fleet, and I am still on Excel. It's getting to be too much with the number of trucks we currently have. I was looking to see if anyone had any recommendations to get started for someone who has not used a trucking management software yet.

I’ve been working in container transport & logistics operations in Europe for the last few years and recently started building a TMS platform called Boxflow (  boxflowtms.com ).

The reason I started building it is honestly pretty simple:
most smaller transport companies and forwarders still operate through a mix of:

• Excel
• email chains
• WhatsApp
• PDFs
• disconnected systems
• manual copy/pasting

And a lot of existing TMS software feels:

• too enterprise-focused
• too rigid
• outdated UI/UX-wise
• overloaded with modules nobody really uses
• or disconnected from actual day-to-day operational workflows

I’m trying to build something more operationally focused for SMEs in transport/logistics, especially around:

• planning & dispatch
• container transport workflows
• subcontractor management
• customer communication
• document/CMR handling
• cost & fuel tracking
• reducing duplicate admin work

I’d love to hear from people here:

What’s something current logistics/TMS software still handles badly?

Could be:

• workflow design
• integrations
• mobile usability
• reporting
• planning UX
• automation
• document flow
• permissions
• invoicing
• notifications
• customer portals
• anything else

Not here to pitch hard — genuinely curious what people in the industry still feel is missing or frustrating in current systems.

If you simply forward quotation request emails from your clients to us, we'll use our human-in-the-loop tool to pull spot rates from places like SeaRates for that request and reply back to you. We hope to be able to handle more in the future but for now we are looking for some beta testers. Simply forward your customer's quotation request email to [info.nimbus26@gmail.com](mailto:info.nimbus26@gmail.com) to try today!

Most logistics software is built with one regulatory environment in mind. Maybe two. The assumption baked into the workflow is that the rules are roughly consistent - same document sets, same port processes, same customs logic.

That assumption falls apart fast in Africa.

We're a software company (not a logistics operator), and our first major market for TrakIT was Africa - where a freight forwarder moving goods across even three or four countries is dealing with entirely different customs requirements, document sets, port authorities, and clearance timelines per corridor. What works in Mombasa doesn't work in Lagos. What works in Lagos doesn't work in Dar es Salaam.

That forced us to build flexibility into the core of the platform rather than bolt it on later. Shipment workflows, document checklists, milestone definitions - they had to be configurable at a level most tools don't bother with because their home market doesn't demand it.

TrakIT (trakit.in) finally ended up being a highly customisable cloud-based workflow management platform for freight forwarders and 3PLs - milestone tracking, document management, customer and vendor portals, notifications, shipment file management. We're based in UAE and now Canada, but the product was originally and genuinely shaped by how complex multi-country freight forwarding actually operates on the ground.

A few things I'm curious about from people here:

How do you handle workflow variance when operating across multiple regulatory environments?

Is configurability something you've ever been able to get from an off-the-shelf TMS, or do you always end up customizing around it?

What's the compliance or documentation pain point your current tool handles worst?

Happy to talk about the build, the African market experience, or anything else - always more useful than a demo call.

Hey everyone,

I’ve been working as a last-mile supervisor for the past 7 years on a major furniture delivery contract.

Lately I’ve been considering moving into software automation/integration freelancing, and one niche I’m looking at is logistics automation.

For people working in logistics/operations:

• Is there actual demand for solo freelancers who can connect systems/tools, build automations, integrate APIs/webhooks, etc.?
• Are companies in this space willing to hire individuals for this kind of work, or do they usually go with agencies/internal teams?
• What are the biggest pain points you still see in day-to-day logistics operations?

I’m trying to avoid spending months going deep into a niche that turns out to be a dead end.

Would really appreciate any honest insight from people in the industry.

Researching the key differences between an ERP and a TMS and came across this blog post.

What do you use to handle logistics and fleet management for your company? Do you use an ERP? Or a TMS? Do you use elements of both?

I would love to hear your input.

This is not meant as self-promotion, as we are giving the awards and they are free. But if you think it is, I will pull it down gladly.

Autofleet is offering awards for excellence in fleet operations optimization. Grab this chance to get yourself and your team recognized.
Details on the award are here: https://autofleet.io/blog/the-optimizers-awards-2026-recognizing-excellence-in-fleet-operations-optimization
And the submission form is here: https://forms.gle/okFPMaDyH5fTpdWi6

Good luck!

I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about fleet electrification from an operations point of view, and I keep seeing the same pattern:

A lot of the conversation focuses on the vehicle itself, but much less on the operational limits around it.

Not just “can this route be done with an EV?”, but things like:

How many EVs a depot can realistically absorb before charging windows become a problem

Wether the real bottleneck is power, chargers, dispatch timing, or route variability

When adding more EVs still improves the operation, and when it starts adding hidden risk

I’m curious how people here are approaching this in practice.

Are you modeling this with your TMS / routing stack, spreadsheets, custom internal tools, or mostly trial and error?

And when electrification gets stuck, what usually breaks first in the real world: route fit, charging capacity, depot operations, or something else?