Rates improved substantially in the last two months in the Midwest region. Going back to Chicago from anywhere towards a weekend is still annoying, not to say miserable. I guess it will be this way forever.
It's funny I looked into this. Rooted a tablet, got inside the Elog app and found files where everything is stored. I think a person who is good with apps can change things around in there. It's already very easy to fake a gps location with Android, so we might see hacked elogs in the future. I, honestly think Elogs will improve the rates. Let's say you do now 5 loads per week. If with elogs you do 4 loads, but each of them pays $150-250 more, then at the end of the week you will be making the same money, by working less. In the fall I predict rates go higher than now. I know crap load of people who run crazy miles on paper. Just in Detroit alone I know people from 3 companies, with close to 300 trucks combined, running dedicated GM freight thru CH Robinson, it's all team loads, but they are done by solo drivers. Stuff like that happens in every city. So in the fall when everybody will be switching, it will be a lot of uncovered contract freight being pushed to spot market.
Elogs will DEFINITELY raise rates in general. They will also have a material effect on customers loading times. Unloading will still suck. Not saying this will happen everywhere or in every industry (in produce I expect rates to stay the same or even drop slightly for shippers that are good at logistics... this will be made up for on their end by higher costs from spoiled product) but every business out there will have to confront either doing business more efficiently (read: more truck friendly) or paying higher rates. EDIT: And after thinking about it long and hard I'm 80% sure that elogs will be a good thing for me. Generally speaking I see a good size spike in business whenever things are chaotic in the freight market. If customers are struggling to cover trucks my core offering (trucks that actually show up to the pickup at a semi reasonable price for the market) looks pretty ####### good.
