How trucking companies can save money with route-based forecasts

November 2, 2022 by Rich Kurtzman, Brand Communications @ Fathym

In this piece

• An intro to the trucking industry
• Trucking shipments are increasing month-over-month and trucking jobs are increasing
• Habistack weather forecasting helps trucking companies prepare for weather, avoid delays

It’s no secret that the trucking industry is responsible for bringing most of our everyday products to our doorstep in America.

From clothes to food to televisions and smartphones, over-the-road trucking is likely part of the delivery process along the way.

In fact, the trucking industry brings in over $700 billion per year while transporting 72.5% of American freight.

As technology and regulations change around trucking, the companies and drivers can also utilize tech in new and exciting ways. Specifically, knowing what weather and potential delays to look out for while they’re on the road.

Habistack introduction

Habistack is a robust, feature-rich API that offers a powerful suite of weather forecasting and open-source data visualization tools.

Habistack combines the world's best weather forecasts with statistics-based, machine-learning techniques to tackle the largest datasets, including road weather. Habistack offers developers comprehensive weather forecasting capabilities over freely chosen locations and routes across the globe. The API delivers a unique suite of highly specialized forecast variables derived through statistically based machine learning models.

It uses 15 data measurements and then evaluates them using artificial intelligence and machine learning.

Habistack is open and free to the public to use. There are also pricing plans for developers and companies that want to use Habistack APIs to forecast weather and road conditions in their own applications.

Road weather

Wouldn’t it be nice to know what weather to expect on the road level while traversing treacherous mountain passes? And to know when and where there could be delays?

Now you can.

Habistack allows trucking companies to enter their drivers’ routes and predict the weather along the entire way. That brilliant technology can be used on shorter drives, like the daily commute, as well as for longer, multi-day and cross-country trips like truckers make.

Use Case | Los Angeles to Charleston, SC using Proadject

Proadject is an application Fathym created to show off the power of Habistack and what trucking companies could do using the machine learning and AI in the API.

Using Proadject, we looked at what a cross-country trip from Los Angeles to Charleston, SC would look like given our current and upcoming weather.

Proadject calculated three different routes, the time it would take to drive them as well as looking at all the coming weather along the way. Then drivers – or those in charge of routes – can pick which one to go with.

As you can see, there will be some rainy conditions later in the drive, and it shows the coordinating potential delay risks associated with the weather, too.

The best part about it is trucking companies can customize their apps, creating smart systems which benefit their company.

Habistack helps make trucking companies profitable

From Zippia’s report on trucking:

“Most trucking companies fail because their costs are higher than their income. Often trucking companies encounter high operational costs and struggle to pull in enough customers or high-paying freight to cover those costs, which causes them to fail.

It’s also difficult to lower expenses without losing drivers, as 34% of trucking companies’ costs are their drivers’ paychecks.”

Costs like fuel prices and those drivers’ paychecks can be reduced by knowing what weather and delays are coming, and how to avoid them.

Say a truck is taking a shipment from Las Vegas, NV to Chicago, IL. They could take I-80 or they could take I-70 eastward, and both interstates have been known to close due to snow, ice and windy conditions. Knowing which route to choose could be the difference of freight arriving on time or days late.

Trucking companies can stay on top of the weather and avoid costly delays by using Habistack Weather API and build their own apps today.