6 Break Out Apps Disrupting the Trucking Industry

The trucking industry is ripe for innovation, and apps aimed at the market are able to avoid competing among the sea of inbox organizers, chat, and photo-editing apps.

For an app to penetrate the traditionally old-school and resistant market of trucking, it first has to understand the industry's challenges in order to build a real solution. The apps below have done exactly that. They're increasing fuel efficiency, optimizing navigation routes, and streamlining shipping and trucker matching.

1. Doft

The on-demand instant freight and truck matching platform improves the lives of truckers and shippers with peer-to-peer service, cutting out the middlemen and dramatically saving time. Matching a trucker with a shipper takes only a few minutes: shippers fill in the freight info, post the load, and get paired with a professional truck driver. That increased efficiency not only reduces costs but also helps reduce the number of trucks running on the road with empty loads.

2. GasBuddy

When you're burning hundreds or even thousands of gallons of diesel each week, even the smallest savings add up. The free GasBuddy app relies on a community of users to give drivers up-to-date diesel prices for thousands of stations across the US and Canada. Drivers can find the cheapest fuel, locate nearby fueling stations, sort them by price, and see station features.

3. Co-Pilot Truck GPS

This truck-specific, voice-guided GPS navigation system was built to ensure truckers can always access safe, reliable directions using only truck-legal routes that match the truck's weight, size, and clearance requirements. Maps can be downloaded to the phone for use even where there's no connection.

4. Find Truck Service & Stops

There are apps for the best of times and the worst of times. This free app is for the latter, listing thousands of heavy-duty service locations across the US by category: repair shops, road service, tow companies, OEM dealers, and more.

5. ShiftPoint

This GPS-guided app helps new truck drivers shift gears smoothly as they get the hang of a new rig. It displays the correct gear and rev point on the screen based on your speed and the road incline, helping you avoid grinding gears and wasting fuel.

6. Trucker Tools

The all-in-one creature-comforts app. This free app offers truck-stop-specific coupons for thousands of stops all over the US, provides directions to each stop near you, and helps you find low fuel prices.

The bottom line

The trucking industry has long been slow and inefficient, with shippers and truckers historically taking hours to match via fax or telephone, and US truckers spending a significant share of their miles running empty without loads. That's costly for drivers and bad for the environment, since trucks are a major source of freight emissions. Technology that matches loads instantly and cuts out hidden broker commissions is exactly what the industry needs.