FLS Transportation Services is a privately owned, non-asset-based provider of transportation and logistics services, headquartered in Canada.

Business challenge
A core part a company's transportation business is mail contracts with the U.S. Postal Service, which mandated location reporting requirements for all freight contracts, through which mail freight will be managed and tracked with GPS reporting every 15 minutes and enhanced with real-time logistics event monitoring, ETAs based on traffic conditions and load status at origin/destination postal facilities.

FLS Transportation Services works with a wide range of partner carriers using a just-in-time pool of drivers to support their U.S. Postal highway contract routes (HCRs). Most of their contracts were made of complex routes with multi-stops and multi-day runs with strict arrival/departure SLAs at postal facilities along the route.

The company was in search of a solution to help with the U.S. postal logistics data reporting to comply with their contract requirements.

Business solution
myGeoTracking, Sunnyvale, Calif., implemented its certified USPS location reporting solution (LCRS) by provisioning a lite USPS app on drivers’ phones. The app tracks location using GPS/WiFi and collects various field data, including geofence events with zero touch from the driver. It wakes up based on a set HCR schedule assignments made by the dispatch team and reports without needing any driver intervention.

The cloud-hosted myGeoTracking system was set up with geo-fenced USPS facilities to record and report the arrival/departures and the time spent at each facility. The app also caches data in case of poor network connectivity and re-sends when the driver is in good network coverage.

With this app, the dispatch team can provision drivers and trips using simple csv upload within few hours of receiving the trip assignments from carriers. Once the assignment are complete, the traffic team can access the command and control center to keep visual tabs on loads in real-time or simply receive alerts and reports based on set times and arrive/depart events.

The system automatically submits the tracking data as a part of compliance reporting to USPS on behalf of the company. Furthermore, the system provides real-time logistics visibility to the USPS via a custom login access.

Business benefits

·         Meets U.S. government location reporting requirements and retains contracts.

·         Saves in capital expenses by eliminating the need for costly in-vehicle GPS-devices.

·         Saves as much as 10% in driver efficiency per month and reduces penalty charges from USPS in case of operations delays.

·         Enables a wide range of partner carriers to provide just-in-time driver assignments.

·         Assigns drivers to the trips.

·         Streamlines operations and speeds up response times for ad-hoc tasks.