What is a Load Board? There's a marketplace for loads where t | Logistics and Supply Chain News

What is a Load Board?

There's a marketplace for loads where truck operators and owners, freight brokers and shippers meet. It's called a load board, also popularly known as a freight board.

How Do Load Boards Work?

The load board is usually an online marketplace with paying subscribers who log into the load board to advertise either their loads. It is also used to post the availability of empty trucks so the truckers can either get their vehicle loaded or to help cover their freight expenses.

The load board acts as a platform among the shipper and carriers or operators. The broker must also be considered, who will act as the middle party between the shipper and operator or owner and carriers.


To illustrate how it works,

let us imagine two characters:
Joe, a truck owner, and
Daniel, the transportation broker.

Joe lives in Illinois but wants to drive to New Mexico. He's looking for freight to haul from Illinois to New Mexico, so he posts about his truck in the load board.

Daniel is a transportation broker who has customers like Amazon or Walmart. He is also a subscriber to the load board where Joe posted. Today, Daniel has freight that he needs to haul for his customers, so he logs in to the load board and sees Joe's post.

They negotiate for Joe to haul Daniel freight until they reach an agreement and make it official via digital signatures etc.