ALK|FleetSuite Tolls Case Study
Swift Transportation
COMPANY
Swift Transportation, headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona, provides irregular
route dry and refrigerated truckload freight service. The company operates
more than 13,000 company-owned power units and uses the services of about
3,200 owner-operators to meet the shipping and transportation needs of retailers
and manufacturers. Among its clients are the nation’s ten largest retail
operations.
CHALLENGES
Swift Transportation, relates John White, Vice President of Marketing Services,
has been using ALK Technologies PC*MILER software for mileage and billing
for about four years, but clearly needed a Tolls calculation capability to
develop more accurate pricing. “There was a lack of an adequate tool
that would allow us to know and understand accurate toll expenses by route,” he
states. “This is important, especially in dedicated operations. Using
toll cost averages didn’t enable us to include actual expenses in our
rates. While we had a contractual ability to pass through toll costs, there
was an inability to capture them in a simple manner.”
SOLUTIONS
To address its toll calculation needs, Swift Transportation became an early
adopter of the ALK Tolls module. By combining ALK’s street level-mapping
database with toll location and cost data from all states, toll authorities
and road, bridge and tunnel jurisdictions, the module provides detailed, accurate
toll costs for each route.
“With the Tolls module our profitability analyses are more accurate
and we have much better activity based costing,” White says. “This
module has allowed us to quickly and easily improve our entire billing process
relative to tolls, and more effectively evaluate routing and fueling options
based on exact toll route costs.”
Using the Tolls module to accurately calculate costs and bill clients, White
estimates Swift will save between $1 and $1.5 million annually. Estimated savings
on just one large account equal $500,000 per year. The return on investment
in the Tolls product for Swift, he adds, is just a few months.
White also points out that Swift expects the ALK Tolls module to streamline
reimbursement of tolls costs for the approximately 3,200 owner-operators working
for the carrier. “The process will be greatly simplified because the
company will not have to wait for receipts, audit them and enter the data into
the payroll system for driver settlement,” he says.
QUOTABLE
“
Swift has a real need to become more accurate on certain costs, particularly
tolls. Most carriers lack the knowledge to track exact toll expenses for rating,
routing, and reimbursement of drivers. This new ALK product helps the entire
industry more accurately track costs and profits, bid precisely, and audit
and reimburse drivers without drowning in paper receipts. We had asked ALK
to develop this type of solution and they have been very responsive, delivering
a product in less than six months. Their willingness to listen to their clients
went a long way toward making a viable solution a reality.”
John White
Vice President of Marketing Services
Swift Transportation
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