mercer transportation

I just looked in the book and couldn't find anything about the areas. If you look and find it, could you let me know where you found it. I would like to get more familiar with any advantages or disadvantages that may help we work the board. I read through the entire section on Operations and didn't see anything in there on it.

 

There are 3 main boards. System board which covers every area. Think of it as the north America board. West coast board, which covers the 11 western states. New mexico, colorado, wyoming, Montana, idaho, utah, nevada, arizona, California, Oregon and washington. And then the short haul board.

The short haul board is all by itself. You can't have your truck on it, and on the other boards at the same time. It's for guys that never leave their little area. I think it's a 400 mile radius.

When your see us talking about working up board position, it's usually in reference to the west coast. If a load originates and delivers in those western States you can run it and maintain your original empty time. For example, your deliver in california on march 1st, you can run as many as those western loads as you want and your empty time on the main board will stay march 1st.

Now there is one exception to this. A load pulled from the main board with a g code. An example: if I'm sitting at home i can try to get a short load from tampa to orlando, and have my Coordinator accept it as a g code. Even tho I'm number 1 on the board i just don't want to lose my board position for a short 500 dollar load. The load will run the board, and if no one accepts it as a regular load, it will them run the board again for the guys that accepted it as a g code. If i got it, after delivery my board position would go back to my original empty date.

 

It would be nice to put another set of feelers out there for freight. Agents get busy and sometimes might not have a chance to peek at the boards. What is the hurt in allowing drivers to look.

Many manufacturing companies use in house brokers or contracted brokers to list their freight on load boards in order to get it moved. As a result other carriers will call the to get these loads when they see them on the board. A lot of them pay decent.

 

Will Mercer apply for the permits , or is that the drivers responsibility?

 

Yet another example of why guys need to know how to work on their truck.

Just as i was topping flat top on 77 my engine quit. Coast of the road to the shoulder start diagnosing. Cranks great but won't fire. First thing, run the codes. Stop engine light flashes code 61, reference that number says: injector response long. So that tells us that either at least two injectors suddenly competition quit working, or its a wiring issue. Highly unlikely two injector solenoids would go bad at the exact same time, so i focus on wiring.

Ecm connection at battery. Got good tight and clean connections. Injector harness at ecm...well that just don't feel right. Crank it up and it fires, but runs like crap missing horribly. Leaving it run i go back to the ecm and start wiggling wires, pull on those injector harness wires and instantly revs up and runs smooth. Think we found the problem. Two zip ties to hold it snug and I'm headed down the road. Obviously I'm going to pull the plug and fix it right. But this will get me to a better and safer location than the shoulder. Hell, I'll probably wait till i get home in a couple weeks.

Start to finish, about 30 minutes and saved at least a grand and probably a lot more. Tow trucks are not cheap and the dealer would of changed the harness plus charged a hundred bucks or so to hook it up to the laptop. And don't forget the additional downtime and losing my next two loads.

 

I want to thank you all who took the time to answer my questions at this time. I'm sure I will have a few more in the near future. You all are helping me make this transition much easier. Be Safe.

 

Mercer handles it all. All you gotta do is give them your route, and double check the dimensions.

 

Not 100% sure, I've never done one at Mercer, I know they pay for them, someone will chime in and tell you though.

 

You matching up at different numbers on the board has nothing to do with different boards (unless you are working the west coast). It has everything to do with your preferences.

 

As mentioned Mercer will do everything for you and email (if you have a printer) or fax them to you. I think someone mentioned WY where you pay the $25 and they reimburse you when you scan it in. If going through WY remember to call them BEFORE you get to the POE and get your authorization code.