Freightvine

This week, Chris Caplice is joined by Jim Filter, Schneider’s newly appointed President and CEO, to talk about what it means to step into that role during a period of major change for the freight industry. Jim reflects on his nearly 30-year career at Schneider, the operational and international experiences that shaped his leadership, and how the company is adapting as customer needs, technology, a...

This week, Chris Caplice is joined by Dr. Jason Miller, Professor of Supply Chain Management at Michigan State University’s Eli Broad College of Business, for his fifth appearance on Freightvine. Chris and Jason break down why they believe the current truckload cycle began in December 2025, why it took a few months to confirm the shift, and why this expansion looks different from past freight cycl...

The freight industry’s transition to alternative power is firmly in the “messy middle” This week, Chris Caplice is joined by Mike Roeth, Executive Director of the North American Council for Freight Efficiency, to unpack what that actually means for carriers, shippers, and the broader supply chain. Mike has been leading NACFE since its early days and brings insights from years of work plus the late...

A unanimous Supreme Court decision could have major implications for freight brokerages🚨 Chris Caplice is joined by Ken Adamo, Chief Strategy Officer at Ease Logistics, to break down the Montgomery case and what it means now that brokers can be held liable for negligent carrier hiring. ⚖️ Why this ruling could reshape broker liability 📈 The potential impact on insurance costs 🚛 How small and mi...

Chris Caplice sits down with Peter Swartz, CEO and co-founder of Altana, to talk about what it takes to navigate today’s fragmented global supply chain landscape. 🌎 Why multi-tier supply chain visibility matters more than ever 📑 Managing tariffs, trade regulations, and compliance at scale 🤖 How AI is helping businesses respond faster to disruption 📦 Understanding the full value chain from raw...

In this Freightvine podcast episode, Chief Scientist Chris Caplice interviews Bill Cassidy, Senior Editor for Trucking and Domestic Transportation at the Journal of Commerce and a transportation expert. They discuss the current "diesel squeeze," where costs jumped 32% in one month, reaching $5 per gallon instead of the expected $3.70—a devastating "black swan" event for small carriers. The collaps...

In this episode of the Freightvine Podcast, host Chris Caplice sits down with Dr. Matthias Winkenbach, Director of Research at the MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics, to explore how the “last mile” problem is evolving under modern logistics pressures. Winkenbach explains how rising customer expectations for speed and consistency are stretching traditional optimization models and how mac...

Eric Johnson, Senior Technology Editor at the Journal of Commerce (JOC), part of S&P Global, is the guest on this episode of the Freightvine podcast. Eric leads coverage and analysis of technology's impact on global logistics and trade. He is co-chair of the annual Inland Distribution Conference and founder of TPM Tech, the technology-focused event held in conjunction with TPM - the Transpacif...

In this episode of the Freightvine Podcast, host Chris sits down with Jason Traff, co-founder of Shipwell, to explore the transformation of supply chain management from manual spreadsheets to AI-driven automation. Traff recounts his unique journey from shipping art globally to founding a modern Transportation Management System (TMS) at MIT, driven by the need to replace legacy "digital filing cabi...

This week’s guest is Chris Pickett, Chief Commercial Officer at Flock Freight as well as the Founder of Pickett Research. Chris Pickett returns to the podcast after 6 years! In the conversation, he discusses the evolution of freight brokerage, from his days building Coyote Logistics to his current focus at Flock Freight. He details how Flock is establishing "Shared Truckload" as a distinct mode fr...

In this episode, Erin Van Zeeland discusses the massive technological transformation of the logistics industry in general, and Schneider specifically. Here are Three Key Takeaways 1.AI and Digital Transformation: The company has transitioned from manual processes to using specialized "logistics bots" that interpret customer intent and automate maintenance requests. This technology allows for human...

In this episode, Fab Brasca (SVP at Kinaxis) discusses the evolution of supply chain technology from 1990s silos to modern, integrated systems. The three key takeaways: Concurrency over Silos: Moving beyond sequential processes, concurrency allows for instantaneous, cross-functional visibility. A change in one area—such as a forecast adjustment—immediately ripples across the entire network. Action...

In this podcast, Larry Gross, a long-time industry expert and 2024 Silver Kingpin Award winner, reflects on a career that began before the deregulation of the transportation industry in 1980. Gross spent over two decades developing Road Railer technology, which featured reinforced 53-foot trailers that could act as rail cars through the attachment of detachable rail running gear. Although this inn...

This week’s guest is Kevin Zweier, Partner & Lead of North American Transportation Practice for Argon & Co.  Kevin is a leading expert in transportation procurement having been in the practice for three decades now.    In today’s conversation, we discuss the current state of freight procurement as we enter 2026. While market volatility has led to a "cry wolf" syndrome regarding shippers fa...

This week’s guests are my two DAT iQ colleagues: Ken Adamo, Chief of Analytics, and Dean Croke, Principal Analyst. This is our annual end of the year podcast where we revisit our predictions from last year, discuss the major issues of the current year, and take our best guesses as to what will happen next year.  We did not do that well in our annual predictions for 2025 - we all expected dry van s...

In this episode, we’re joined by Corey Klujsza, VP of Pricing and Procurement Strategy at RXO. With experience spanning Coyote Logistics, UPS, and now RXO, Corey brings deep insight into how the truckload market works. He walks us through RXO’s quarterly market analysis framework—the RXO Curve—which tracks year-over-year truckload rate changes to understand market cycles and risk. We dig into the...

In this episode, we welcome Tim Gagnon (VP of Analytics and Data Science) and Mark Albrecht (VP of AI and Enterprise Strategy) from C.H. Robinson to discuss how AI is transforming the freight industry. We explore the evolution of AI—from traditional methods like machine learning and robotic process automation, to generative AI, and now Agentic AI , which can plan, use tools, learn from past mistak...

This week’s guest is John Motley, the founder and CEO of LogNet.  LogNet was founded over 30 years ago and in our conversation we discussed the evolution of supply chain technology over that time.  John recounts LogNet's origins as an early pioneer, being the first client-server solution to utilize SQL databases on PCs, focusing specifically on visibility across order, transportation, and warehous...

This week’s guest is Patrick Pretorius, Senior Director of Enterprise Shipper sales at DAT. Patrick provides unique insight, drawing on his extensive international experience that began in Cape Town, South Africa, and included working across multiple continents with steamship lines, global 3PLs, and other transportation providers. In our conversation Patrick outlines the distinctions between manag...

This week’s guest is Dr. Angi Acocella, a Research Scientist here at MIT’s Center for Transportation & Logistics and a key member of the MIT FreightLab.   Angi was last on the Freightvine in the fall of 2021 - 4 years ago - when she was a doctoral student.   A lot has changed over that time and after a post-doc in the Netherlands, Angi is back at MIT doing great research exploring shipper-brok...

This week’s guest is Ari Ashe, Senior editor of the Journal of Commerce which is part of S&P Global.  Ari explains the ins and outs of the proposed, and potentially transformational, merger between the Union Pacific (UP) and the Norfolk Southern (NS) railroads.  This deal would create the first transcontinental railroad across the United States. Our conversation delves into what is driving the...

This week’s guest is Dr. Alex Leslie, Senior Research Associate at the American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI), a not-for-profit research arm for the trucking industry.  Alex is the lead author on ATRI’s latest research publication “Analysis of the Operational Costs of Trucking: 2025 Update”.  Using detailed polling and data analysis, Alex is able to reveal not only the current average p...

This week’s guest is Vishal Jadhav, Product Director at Blue Yonder. Everyone listening to this podcast knows of Blue Yonder. It is a company with a long history, from I2 to JDA, that has consistently been on the cutting edge of supply chain management software. Vishal has spent almost 20 years at Blue Yonder. His recent work and writings have delved into the evolution of Large Language Models (LL...

This week’s guest is Andres Mendoza Pena, Partner at Kearney.  Andres is here to discuss Kearney and CSCMP's annual State of Logistics report, aptly titled "Navigating Through the Fog." This title reflects the high uncertainty in the macro context impacting supply chain executives, like driving through dense fog.  In our conversation, we discuss the "fragile optimism" in the economy and the "certa...

This week’s guest is Chadd Olesen, CEO of AVRL.  Founded in 2017 as Advanced Voice Research Labs, AVRL brought voice technology to business applications such as predictive maintenance.   They shifted however to dynamic pricing models after meeting with pricing analysts at some larger carriers and brokers.  Today, AVRL automates over 25 million spot transactions monthly and provides pricing engines...