Overview
The Inbound and Outbound Load Flow indicators represent the load volume flowing in and out of the origin and destination in your quote. They provide a quick picture of the supply and demand dynamics in the markets at both ends of the lane.
Inbound Load Flow (ILF) represents the direction of load volume flowing into the market relative to the prior calendar day, and Outbound Load Flow (OLF) represents the direction of load volume flowing out of the market relative to the prior calendar day.
A green indicator means that the load flow in the local market is working in your favor, and that you will likely have more bargaining power with carriers. A red indicator means it may be harder to book a truck in that market.
Details
So, what do the ILF and OLF indicators actually mean? Here are the details:
Origin
| ↑ | ↓ |
Inbound Load Flow | More volume is flowing into the origin market, and therefore more trucks should be available to move the load. There is potential for excess capacity at the load's origin, which means favorable conditions for negotiating with carriers. | Less volume is flowing into the origin market, meaning that fewer trucks will be available to move the load. This means conditions may be less favorable for a broker negotiating with carriers. |
Outbound Load Flow | More volume is flowing out of the origin market and therefore fewer trucks are available to move the load. There is potential for constrained capacity at the load origin, which means unfavorable conditions for negotiating a rate with a carrier. | Less volume is flowing out of the origin market and therefore more trucks should be available to move the load. There is potential for excess capacity at origin, which means favorable conditions for negotiating a rate with a carrier. |
Destination
| ↑ | ↓ |
Inbound Load Flow | More trucks are entering the destination market, and therefore a carrier may have a more difficult time finding a load to get them out of the destination market. There is potential for excess capacity at destination. This is a less favorable environment for negotiating a rate with a carrier. | Fewer trucks are entering the destination market and therefore a carrier may have an easier time finding a load to get them out of the destination market. There is potential for constrained capacity at destination. This is a favorable environment for negotiating a rate with the carrier. |
Outbound Load Flow | More loads are leaving the destination market and therefore a carrier may have an easier time finding a load to get them out of the destination market. There is potential for constrained capacity at origin. This is a favorable environment for negotiating a rate with a carrier. | Fewer loads are flowing out of the destination market and therefore a carrier may have a more difficult time finding a load to get them out of the destination market. There is potential for excess capacity at origin. This is an unfavorable environment for negotiating a rate. |
Applying the Load Flow Indicators to your Negotiations
The ILF and OLF indicators are there to give you an extra edge in negotiations with carriers. You can make this work for you in several different ways:
Use the indicators as a sense check. If the majority of the market is red, you might want to try to cover that load earlier or be willing to negotiate a bit faster with the carrier. If the market has majority green, try to stick to your lower price point and bring the carrier down to you.
Implement slight premiums and discounts on the shipper quotes based on market imbalances.
If you have API access, set up studies pulling this data for all loads and implement second layer pricing strategies. For example:
If confidence is above 75 and 3 OLF ILF indicators are green, you might lower your max buy rate slightly.
If confidence is less than 75 and 3 OLF ILF indicators are red, you might lower your start rate slightly, and quote with a higher markup.
Negotiation Examples
You can bring up information from the ILF and OLF indicators to strike a better deal with a carrier. For instance:
If the OLF at the destination is green, you might say something like,"There are a lot of loads picking up out of the destination, so it should be really easy for you to find a load out of there."
If the ILF at the origin market is green, you might say something like, "We're seeing an uptick in trucks coming into this origin, so we're confident we'll be able to cover the load at this rate."
In the case here, there are only a small number of loads moving both in and out of the origin city, and there are a lot of loads moving in and out of the destination. You could point out to the carrier that the small flow of loads out of Odessa makes it likely that they won't be able to find another load back to the FL area:
In this second example, you could tell the carrier that there are many loads coming into Orlando so you will have a high likelihood of finding another carrier for this particular load:
