Managed transportation services, backed by NTelligence™ analytics.

What managed transportation actually means

Most shippers who ask about managed transportation have already tried optimizing their own freight program. They have a TMS, carrier contracts, and someone watching the rates. Coverage usually isn't the problem. The network keeps drifting. Orders get smaller, stops get added, a new distribution center reshuffles a whole region, and the program designed twelve months ago no longer fits what ships today.

NT takes over the freight program and stays responsible for it, month after month. We run the carriers, routing, appointments and exceptions on the same NTelligence™ data platform we use to measure cost, so when the network shifts, we see it in the data before you see it on an invoice. You don’t buy an analysis first and then decide on management. Building the baseline is part of getting started.

What the engagement looks like

• A baseline to manage against. When we take over, your shipment history is rebuilt into a lane-by-lane cost picture. It's part of onboarding, and every decision after that is measured against it.
• Program design. Carrier mix, mode allocation, routing rules, and dedicated capacity where volume justifies it, all built around your own freight instead of an industry average.
• Continuous planning. Carrier mix, routing and capacity are re-planned as orders, lanes and customers change, not set once at contract signing.
• Ongoing execution. We handle the daily freight operations: tendering, tracking, appointment management, carrier performance, and accessorial controls.
• Regular network reviews. Every quarter or six months we rerun the NTelligence data to catch lane drift, volume shifts, and new savings early.
• Exception management. Service failures, detention, and missed appointments are worked in real time by an operations team that knows your freight.
• Monitoring and reporting. You see the program as it runs in the Client Analytics Portal: performance dashboards, shipment tracking and load documents.

Dedicated capacity inside the program

When a route runs every week with windows that don’t move, a managed program can include dedicated capacity: committed trucks and drivers on routes we’ve measured first, sized to your demand and kept current as it changes. It works like your own fleet without being on your books, and the rest of the program keeps brokerage and other modes for the freight that varies. More on dedicated logistics.

Who this fits

Managed transportation makes sense when your network is complex enough that a fixed carrier program starts slipping within a year. That usually means $25M or more in annual freight spend, multiple distribution points, a mix of modes, or a product line where cost per case or per pound is a key business metric. For a simpler network, a one-time analysis and better carrier execution often do the job without a full managed program.

How it differs from brokerage

A broker moves loads. Managed transportation runs a network. Brokerage gets each load the best result on its own, while managed transportation improves the whole program over time. NT does both. Inside a managed program, brokerage is the flexible capacity we draw on when we need it.

Common questions