forecasting market intelligence

Building Transportation Intelligence

Derek Young, VP of Sales & Marketing | June 12, 2025

4:05

What you do with the data is up to you

In an environment of constant disruption, having access to data is no longer enough. The real competitive advantage lies in how you translate that data into intelligence. Follow along to determine how best to match your data to your strategic goals, zoom out from your own data to understand market behavior, anticipate market moves before they happen, and put the data into action.

The Transportation Industry’s Data Dilemma

Every shipper, fleet, and manufacturer is sitting on mountains of data—rate files, load histories, telematics, equipment utilization, and economic indicators. But too often, that data lives in spreadsheets or dashboards without driving real action.

Why? Because data by itself doesn’t tell you what to do next. Without context, benchmarking, and foresight, data can actually become a distraction. And, if you aren’t looking outside of your own data, you run the risk of being short-sighted with your decisions.

Transportation intelligence is what happens when you transform raw data into:

Strategic insight
Operational foresight
Competitive action

Copy of Define Your Objectives Before Diving into Data

Start by identifying your most critical transportation decisions:

Guide your pricing benchmarks and asset repositioning for carriers
Plan your long-term budgets and contract lengths for shippers
Plan your inventory levels and production schedules for suppliers

Your data strategy should be reverse-engineered from these decision points. This ensures you’re not just collecting data—you’re applying it.

Copy of Define Your Objectives Before Diving into Data (1)

Even the best internal data is limited by design—it tells you what you did, not what the market is doing. To build transportation intelligence, you need both:

Internal visibility (costs, performance, volumes)
External benchmarking (rates, capacity, economic trends)

Bringing in third-party forecasts and indexes (like spot vs. contract spreads, truck utilization, or rail service performance) gives your team the confidence to move proactively, not just reactively. If you’ve read this far, I’d like to point you to our Freight•cast™ forecasting methodology.

Reporting tells you what happened. Forecasting tells you what’s likely to happen—and why. This is where the real value of transportation intelligence comes into play:

Understanding how GDP shifts affect your inbound/outbound volumes
Predicting mode shifts based on pricing pressures
Anticipating equipment shortages or delays before they hit your network

With a forecasting layer in place, you don’t just manage risk—you plan for it.

If you haven’t built out your forecasting methodology yet, we can save you the time and hassle with our FTR Subscription Services. Reach out to me for a sample of any of the reports relevant to your line of business.

Too many teams get stuck at the analysis stage. Intelligence isn’t about more slides or dashboards—it’s about empowering decisions:

Sales and procurement get early warnings on capacity constraints
Finance gains accuracy in budgeting and forecasting transportation spend
Operations can adjust carrier mix or capacity planning based on what’s ahead

The goal is simple: Make intelligence accessible, visual, and linked to your teams’ KPIs.

Final Thought: Build the Engine Once, Use it Often

Creating transportation intelligence is not a one-time project—it’s a living system. But once built, it becomes the engine that powers your network resilience, supplier negotiations, capital planning, and strategic edge.

At FTR, we help clients turn data into decisions every day. Whether you're navigating nearshoring shifts, market uncertainty, or inflationary pressures, one truth remains:

Data is where the journey starts. Intelligence is where you find direction.

Want to learn more about turning Transportation Intelligence? Click on any of the images below to read past blogs.