Opus9 Looks To Provide Shippers Real-Time Quotes On Drayage

Opus9 is now offering to match shippers with drayage carriers as it expands coverage to major U.S. ports.

The Sunnyvale, California-based startup, which already offers load matching and digital brokerage for truckload and less-than-truckload freight, wants to bring the same level of automation to drayage, said Chief Executive Alex Ryu. 

He said the new service offering was inspired after seeing the email inbox of a friend who worked in freight forwarding. 

"For one shipment he was getting 200 emails from drayage providers," Ryu said. "It doesn't make sense to be getting hundreds of emails and not one of them providing an instant quote. 

The new drayage product aims to provide much more transparent pricing than is usually available, Ryu said. Accessorial charges such as chassis fees or surcharges for storing containers are also displayed on the platform.

He said the opacity of drayage pricing is particularly acute for overseas shippers seeking to bring goods into the U.S. They are either using door moves from the ocean carrier or relying on a freight forwarder to provide a quote.  

"We want to reach out to overseas shippers in the drayage market," Ryu said. "They are at an information disadvantage not being in the local market. 

Shippers can use the Opus9 platform to get an instant quote through its dynamic pricing engine and book shipments that are then matched to the carrier network. The Opus9 platform connects to a carrier's transport management system or a shipper's back-office software via APIs. 

View of Opus9 drayage dashboard (Source: Opus9)

Opus9 also built in document capture technology for drivers to scan invoices and documents. Ryu said Opus9 also plans to add geofencing and container tracking technology 

Currently, Opus9 is offering to match drayage loads in the ports of Los Angeles, Long Beach, Savannah, and New York and New Jersey.

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