ABF Freight System of Fort Smith, Ark., has introduced a suite of web-based logistics tools that let customers analyze shipping patterns and leverage special pool distribution rates and services.

According to an announcement, ABF has expanded status reporting to include historical reports and graphs. Customers can examine shipping and receiving patterns over the current and previous years by month, by location, by state, by vendor and more. The information can be easily charted for customer use.
ABF's pool distribution option is even more ambitious. Registered users can choose "Optipool" from the Logistics Planning menu on ABF's home page and enter groups of shipments for possible pool distribution rates.
Pool distribution describes a group of LTL shipments that are given to a carrier as a unit. In its announcement, ABF points out that truckload carriers sometimes solicit such pooled freight, dropping off shipments on the way to an ultimate destination.
It works differently in LTL; pooled shipments stay together from pickup, through the line-haul process to a breakdown or distribution terminal, where individual shipments are separated and placed on local trucks for delivery. Handling pooled shipments as a unit through a substantial portion of the transportation cycle cuts carrier costs. Those savings are shared with shippers in pool distribution rates.
Chris Baltz, ABF's director of Marketing & Public Relations, said ABF believes Optipool is the first program of its kind.
Baltz said ABF developed the Optipool software that enables customers to enter numbers of shipments to learn if it makes sense to group them for distribution rates. The software automatically considers how the shipments might be routed through ABF's national system to generate distribution-rated savings. The program will automatically rate shipments and advise which should be grouped for the best rate.
Baltz said that shipments pooled through an LTL carrier like ABF will often move more quickly than similar arrangements with truckload competitors who make stop-offs. A large LTL carrier will deliver pooled shipments more or less simultaneously.
According to Baltz, Optipool offers a similar option for pooled inbound shipments called Merge-In-Transit.
Of course, both services require that shippers schedule shipments to take advantage of pooling opportunities in either direction.