Technology

Transportation Management | Compliance | Visibility | Procurement

TruSygnal aims to help shippers that don’ t ordinarily use brokers find capacity, not to replace brokers. David Buzzard / Shutterstock. com

Logistics vets bridging shipper-small carrier divide sans broker

By Eric Johnson

The tug of war between truckload brokers and small carriers for the attention of shippers has almost always gone the way of brokers; the huge number of solutions aimed at enabling brokers— rather than disintermediating them— is a testament to that reality.

But there remains a section of the US truckload industry that sees a path for small carriers to work directly with shippers more often.

Ed Burns, CEO of third-party logistics provider( 3PL) Burns Logistics, is one of those people. Over the past year, he and his father, a well-known industry veteran with the same name, launched a new platform to enable shippers and small carriers to connect on lanes where volume and capacity overlap.

Burns Logistics has built a name for itself as a trusted 3PL across virtually every category of trucking, but Burns realized there was still room for technology to serve as a direct conduit between certain shippers and smaller carriers. The vast proportion of truckload volume either moves directly with large carriers— i. e., those with fleets of 1,000 or more trucks— or via freight brokers.

The online platform, dubbed TruSygnal, allows carriers to input their available capacity and shippers to post their volume requirements. The system automatically finds matches based on the lanes where those factors overlap and alerts both parties, which then have a choice to work together, either through the app or offline.

The younger Burns told the Journal of Commerce TruSygnal is designed to give shippers a more complete view of the truckload market by showing them more of the capacity that is available, not just the carriers a broker might have access to.

“ There are lot of 100-, 200- or 500-truck fleets that no one knows exists,” he said, adding that“ a 300-truck fleet is a significant carrier, but it still flies under the radar.” The app is not meant to facilitate spot market or transactional interactions, but rather to expose shippers to new sources of long-term capacity.

“ The premise is that a carrier’ s network is always going to change,” Burns said.“ If you’ re running 250 trucks, you have existing customers, but every time you win a new customer, your network changes. And shipper networks aren’ t stagnant either. Carriers go out of business, or they don’ t meet your service needs.”

Burns emphasized that TruSygnal is“ not for every shipper, by any means.” He said the idea is not to replace brokers but rather to provide a different option for shippers that don’ t ordinarily use brokers a lot— or at all— while giving carriers more visibility to those shippers.

“ It depends on your split between carriers and brokers and what do you want it to be,” he said.“ If you’ re 50-50 and like it that way, or you just want [ the freight ] to move as cheaply as possible, then it’ s probably not suited for you.”

Alternatively, if a shipper prioritizes service over price, or they tend to work with their carriers on a long-term basis,“ that’ s a good sign that this platform will work,” he said.“ Strategic shippers realize this market will change at some point, and they realize if they’ re set up now and locked in at whatever the price is, and price goes up, and it’ s a good fleet, they’ ll still be taken care of.”

“ There are lot of 100-, 200- or 500-truck fleets that no one knows exists.”

Burns said the company plans to eventually layer in carrier vetting, insurance and rate benchmarking tools to provide a more robust experience for shippers. Carriers, meanwhile, can set preferences around things like deadhead tolerances to ensure they aren’ t matched with too many loads outside their comfort zone.

More broadly, Burns sees TruSygnal as a way to combat a market that’ s become too“ bid happy.”

“ It’ s wild for a major shipper to do an annual bid, and then two weeks later, [ they ] get invited to a mini-bid,” either in a lane in which they already operate, or a new one they’ re adding, he said. With TruSygnal, shippers don’ t need mini-bids, they can see which fleets already operate in this new lane.

“ Shippers are getting 50 to 60 solicitations a day for their freight,” Burns added.“ They can’ t answer all those, but on any given day, there’ s probably a carrier in that group that works for them.”

email: eric. johnson @ spglobal. com

36 Journal of Commerce | June 2, 2025 www. joc. com