Tag Archives: trucking

Revolutionizing Trucking Operations: Aifleet’s AI Insights

Trucking is a big business with a great many operational challenges. Trucking firms and fleets deal with them every single day and there’s a lot of associated administrative overhead.

So it seems strange to me that startups have not tried to address these operational problems using AI.

This article presents some of what aifleet, a trucking firm with around 200 vehicles, is using to make trucking a better place to work.

Aifleet CEO El Khoury seems to me to be very farsighted, especially in the current state of innovation in trucking.

The new money flowing to AI in logistics seems to be going to applications relating to brokering. It is not going to routing and scheduling.

But it’s routing and scheduling where big efficiency gains can be made. It’s also where the lifestyle of truckers can be improved, an area many big carriers ignore. I think there would be easy pickings for AI-enhanced scheduling and routing practices. aifleet thinks the same.

John Kingston Friday, July 11, 2025

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/at-a-conference-of-mostly-green-investors-alfleet-pushes-marriage-of-ai-and-trucking

IKEA asks courts to intervene as Convoy’s unpaid truckers send flurry of invoices

When the freight broker Convoy went into bankruptcy, apparently they walked away from paying many truckers for loads already carried. The individual claims weren’t too large, and as creditors they would be far down the line in a bankruptcy proceeding.

Quite a few of the truckers were carrying for IKEA, the giant home goods retailers. The estimate is somewhere around $500K owed to truckers for loads brokered by Convoy.

But IKEA doesn’t know whom to pay. Its contract says to pay Convoy, but only after Convoy has paid the truckers. The carriers were forbidden by the contract they signed from invoicing IKEA.

Apparently Hercules Capital has secured an interest in Convly’s assets including the accounts receivable as part of a financing deal. Hercules Capital has tried to invoice IKEA for $519,254 in transportation costs. But they haven’t agreed to pay the carriers, let alone done so.

To its credit IKEA placed the funds in care of the court. It has asked to be exonerated, and will allow the court to decide which truckers should be paid. But the wheels of bankruptcy grind slowly, and in the meantime, the truckers don’t have their money.

It’s an unpleasant situation for the truckers. I hope the court can address their concerns promptly.

By Alex Lennane 27/02/2024

IKEA asks courts to intervene as Convoy’s unpaid truckers send flurry of invoices

Illinois trucking company’s sudden shutdown leaves team drivers stranded, unpaid

The story documented here is unfortunately all too common today. Truckers are routinely mistreated by trucking firms like this one in the story. And they keep going out of business then reopening and doing the same thing.

Regulators should have the power to put teeth in penalties for this kind of bad behavior, and should without question block future registration when firms close down like this. The article indicates that the wife of the owner of the firm has opened another small trucking firm, which will probably do the same thing to new marks.

I’m tired of writing about mistreatment of truckers. I have great respect for legitimate firms that take care of their drivers. The US should not let bad actors destroy drivers’ lives this way. It’s going to be very difficult to attract new drivers when it’s so easy to be scammed.

Perhaps the Department of Transportation could take a stab at fixing this issue by denying registrations after a background check.

Mayor Pete, it’s up to you!

Clarissa Hawes·Tuesday, April 11, 2023

Illinois trucking company’s sudden shutdown leaves team drivers stranded, unpaid – FreightWaves