When Uber Freight launched Uber Freight Exchange last year, the company said it would be “a transformative shift in procurement practices.”

Inspired by the New York Stock Exchange, Uber Freight Exchange provides a neutral marketplace to streamline and optimize procurement. The goal was to cut through the cumbersome and inefficient process of using RFPs and signing annual contracts for rates. It experienced rapid adoption following its 2023 launch, according to the company. To date, more than 900 carriers have access to hundreds of millions of dollars of freight.

Now the company has added spot freight, allowing motor carriers to accelerate bids and instantly book spot freight with Uber Freight Exchange: Spot.

Uber said carriers want a single destination to book spot freight across all load providers. Exchange: Spot aims to aggregate spot freight for carriers, starting with loads from hundreds of shippers in Uber Freight’s managed transportation business and brokerage.

Exchange: Spot combines the Uber Freight Carrier Web Portal and Transplace FAM (Freight Allocation Module) to give carriers greater access to Uber Freight’s network of shippers — alongside book-it-now load pricing, bidding, and automated tendering on a single platform.

(Uber Freight bought the tech-enabled third-party logistics provider Transplace in 2021.)

Why Visibility into Spot Market is So Important

In the volatility of the spot market, Uber said, real-time knowledge and automated tools can help motor carriers make fast and informed decisions.

Traditionally, carriers turned to fragmented online and offline resources to find and book freight, according to the company. This can lead to inefficiencies, such as limited visibility, time-consuming searches, and disjointed communication, making it harder to react quickly and make the best decisions.

“Uber Freight Exchange was inspired, in part, by the neutrality and efficiency of marketplaces like the New York Stock Exchange,” said Eric Berdinis, head of Carrier Product Management at Uber Freight.

“We wanted to create the choice Exchange for freight. Building on two decades of experience operating spot auction platforms, we’re excited to expand our procurement technology to all shippers and carriers.

“By integrating contract and spot market workflows, Uber Freight Exchange is a major pillar in our mission to revolutionize freight logistics.”

With the help of Uber Freight’s proprietary algorithms and scalable workflows, carriers can tap into more loads and manage fulfillment in one place, with access to Uber Freight’s expansive network of shippers.

Carriers can bid quickly and confidently with upfront load requirements and personalized search and recommendations.

They can also increase consistency using Dedicated Lanes, Uber Freight’s proprietary bundling of spot freight into mini-contracts, and view recommendations for backhaul and reload loads.