10 Trimble Transportation Bid Don’t Bet Network Evaluation Amount In essence, measurements of amount help you evaluate the pure magnitude of your operation. Questions like “how does my rate compare to market rates?” or “how many out of route miles have we incurred while hauling for Customer X?” all relate to an amount, and provide some of the most fundamental information about the nodes in your network (nodes being shippers, your trucks, your drivers, their destinations and everything in between). Other amounts worth carefully evaluating include: | Historical | Market and Bid Rates | Cost per Mile | Cost per Day | Shipping Volume | All Forms of Mileage, Revenue, Margins | And, Ultimately, Profit Quality Velocity Considerations of quality are less black-and-white than calculations of amount. It’s important to consider metrics like operating ratio (OR) when looking at a shipper, but these numbers require careful consideration, as they don’t always accurately capture the value of a lane or customer. A lane may have an excellent OR, but these cost and revenue results may be completely offset by the fact that the lane has sunk a disproportionate amount of time, making it ultimately not worth the trouble. To this end, numerical measures of quality like OR are used best in conjunction with a measure of velocity. Measurements like miles per hour, revenue per truck per day, trailer turns, rate and revenue per hour, and in transit delay all provide you with a sense of momentum. Rather than just giving you a static sense of how you’re performing, these metrics help to understand your business’s trajectory. Because of this value, measurements of velocity should not be overlooked. It’s important to consider metrics like operating ratio (OR) when looking at a shipper. Trimble Transportation