In what the companies say is an effort to better assist both owner-operators and partner carriers, Truckstop.com and Knight-Swift Transportation announced a digital freight matching integration service they say is aimed at helping the company's owner-operators and their vast network of third-party trucking partners move more freight efficiently throughout the country.

"Integrations like this will help us to quickly deliver more load options to our independent truckers at the click of a button," said Shannon Breen, senior vice president of Knight-Swift Logistics and Intermodal. "As we continue to scale our robust capacity offering to customers and carriers nationally, these types of partnerships and collaborations are essential."

According to the companies, the first phase of the partnership includes the integration of Truckstop.com's Book It Now into Knight-Swift's Logistics environment. Book It Now allows Knight-Swift Logistics to post a rate and allow their preferred partner-carriers to instantly book loads and receive automated confirmation for the loads they choose.

"Book It Now gives carriers and owner-operators more options and ease to work with marketplace partners they know and trust," said Bill Vitti, CCO of Truckstop.com. "For large brokerages like Knight-Swift, Book It Now increases efficiency in the capacity sourcing process by eliminating calls and streamlining negotiations. We are excited about this technological advancement as it brings incremental success and productivity to both carriers and brokers."

During the second phase of the integration, Knight-Swift will bring a large contingency of its owner-operators to the Truckstop.com load board, providing substantial new capacity for Truckstop.com customers to tap into. Freight brokers will be able to leverage this new capacity by flagging the Knight-Swift owner-operator group as a preferred carrier as they search for capacity nationwide.

This second phase of the partnership-the integration of Knight-Swift's owner-operator group-is slated to be complete by March 2020.