A new company called eTRAN LLC, of Atlanta, Ga., has announced it will “go live” on May 19 with a service that brings truckload carriers and shippers together to do business on the Internet.

In its announcement, eTRAN calls itself “the new leader in web-based technology for transportation procurement and transaction settlement.”
The eTRAN announcement seems to echo press releases from similar web-based initiatives four and five years ago. Back then the names were CarrierPoint.com, Transportation.com and Logistics.com, among others. Each was headed by a former high-profile trucking executive and each promised to bring shippers and carriers together in a mutually beneficial online market.
Remnants of those three companies still exist in one form or another, but none quite lived up to original billing.
Similarities to eTRAN’s announcement are hard to ignore. For example, eTRAN is headed by Rick Otness, a former UPS executive. According to eTRANS spokesperson Donna Walker, eTRANS will charge the shipper, pay the carrier and earn a fee on each transaction, much like earlier models.
Still, in its announcement the company claims “eTRAN TL is the first, total business solution for truckload shippers and carriers to streamline manual business decisions, automate quality-controlled truckload procurement, complete transaction closure and build new, revenue-generating business relationships.”
Carrierpoint.com, Transportation.com and Logistics.com fared poorly, perhaps because of the deep recession that coincided with their launch. Clearly eTRAN hopes their timing is far better.
Walker said that eTRANS should benefit small to mid-sized truckload carriers, that there will be no fees to join and that the company’s three-person sales department will have a number of carriers and shippers on board when it begins public operations on May 17.