Ryder’s Truck and Trailer Sharing Platform Gives Fleet Owners Extra Income or Capacity

A good number of commercial trucks, tractors and trailers sit idle at times. That could be because they’re owned by companies that are in seasonal businesses or that are challenged by finding drivers during the current driver shortage.

At the same time, there is a heavy equipment shortage, with companies having a hard time finding new or used trucks.

COOP by Ryder brings together these two parties — companies with trucks sitting idle and companies that would like to rent them — on a truck and trailer sharing platform. The platform was launched in one state in 2018, gradually expanded to nine states and then launched nationwide as of Tuesday (Feb. 22).

“The rental market is thriving at the moment, so COOP is another avenue for people to find the trucks that they need to operate their business,” Romain Rousseau , general manager for COOP by Ryder , told PYMNTS. “Instead of going to a traditional rental counter, they can now source vehicles from businesses nearby that have the capacity that they need.”

Enabling Companies to Monetize Idle Assets

Some of the companies that monetize their idle vehicles through the platform look at it as a way to cover the vehicle payments when they’re not running the trucks. Others, seeing it as a business opportunity, have purchased trucks specifically to put them on the COOP platform and start a rental business.

COOP by Ryder vets the renters, collects the payment from renters, pays the owners, handles the transfer of liability insurance and provides roadside assistance. The equipment owners need only tell COOP by Ryder when the units are available and approve the transactions when they come in.

“Throughout the transaction, anything that can happen in trucking, we take care of,” Rousseau said.

As more and more companies use the platform, COOP by Ryder is finding that some use it as both an owner and a renter. Rousseau gave the example of a company that harvests fruit and vegetables. This company could monetize its vehicles in the off season when they would otherwise be sitting idle, and then supplement its own fleet by renting additional capacity during the peak season.

“So, a growing number of our customers are actually using the marketplace both ways, depending on time of year,” Rousseau said. “That’s great because these are the most engaged customers.”

Providing Flexibility to Fleet Owners

The industries that use trucks, tractors and trailers have been impacted by a number of disruptions, including the chip shortage, driver shortage and labor shortage.

“So, having a tool that gives you the ability to flex your fleet up and down as needed, I think, was a great solution to have,” Rousseau said. “I think this is part of the reason we’re seeing the success we’re seeing is that, just providing a lot of flexibility to fleet owners is what we do.”

Looking ahead, Rousseau said COOP by Ryder has a number of integrations coming up with telematics solutions. These will allow the equipment owners to integrate their telematics solution to COOP by Ryder’s platform to track mileage on their unit and locate the unit if there’s a need to dispatch roadside assistance.

“There’s a lot of applications for telematics and it’s really a big item on our technology roadmap to provide more integrations,” Rousseau said. “We already have two in place, but we’re going to continue with more of these telematics companies to provide more value to our users and just automate a lot of the things that are still done manually today.”