The Local Trucking BlogWelcome to the online community for local trucking, cartage, and P&D companies in North America

A number of TMS providers now offer local trucking companies a variety of alternatives to the traditional in-house installation. In the more traditional setup, both the software application and your TMS data reside on a physical server in your company’s office building. For many local P&D companies, this method of hosting data in-house may still be the best one.

However, there are some other newer options for TMS hosting that you may want to consider.  They include the following:

1.   Data in the Cloud, an App on your Desktop (“Managed Hosting”)

In this scenario, you would launch your TMS by clicking on an icon on your desktop, just as if you’re launching Excel.  The TMS application appears on your screen, just as it would if your data lived on your local. The only difference from the traditional in-house model—a difference that is invisible to the user—is that your data lives offsite, hosted by your TMS provider or one of its trusted providers such as Rackspace.

2.  Data in the Cloud, App in the Cloud (an “All-Cloud TMS)

With this alternative, the TMS application itself lives “in the cloud” and is a web-based application.  You get to it by going to a website and logging in there.  You may already have experienced something like this if you use an offsite login to get access to your Exchange e-mail server.

How to Decide?

As usual, there are advantages and disadvantages to any setup. For example, some add-on TMS options (such as GPS or route optimization) require you to have an in-house TMS, so that its database can talk to your TMS’s database.  In some cases, the cloud-hosted database works just fine with third-party vendors.  Check with your current and potential future vendors and see which is the best option for you.

Happy Shopping from the Local Trucking Blog!

–The Editors

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Welcome to The Local Trucking Blog. This blog is the hub of an online community that speaks to the interests of local trucking companies, their owners and managers, and the wider community that they serve.

Depending on your part of the country, local trucking can have different names. We publish content that is designed to meet the needs of:

• local trucking companies;
• local cartage firms;
• local companies with in-house trucks;
• and local pickup and delivery (P&D) companies.

We invite you to check back frequently. Our posts cover a wide range of topics, including:

• management issues:  legal, tax/accounting, delegating succession planning, and more
• insurance issues:  liability, worker’s comp, and more
• software and hardware:  what to look for in a TMS, in power units and trucks, in smartphones, and more
• legislative matters:  HOS, EOBR, and more

If you’re an owner, GM, or manager in local trucking, we want to be the one-stop online resource for your concerns.  Click “subscribe” to join our community and receive notification of new postings.  Please check back often, feel free to post comments, and be sure to tell us if we’re covering what matters to you most (and if we’re not).

Thanks, and welcome!

–Jonathan Miller, Editor

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