When Roadrunner Freight announced last week that it had added 135 lanes to its network, the expansion not only marked the Chicago-based less than truckload (LTL) company’s “most extensive new market openings in five years,” but also showcased its latest step toward redeeming its hamstrung business fortunes.
Created in a 2020 spinoff after its parent company Roadrunner Transportation Systems Inc. floundered in an accounting scandal, Roadrunner Freight was born into troubled times. In addition to pandemic disruptions, a grinding freight recession has now dragged on for the past 18 months, claiming well-funded victims like the now failed Yellow and Convoy. But in the midst of those times, Roadrunner Freight raised $50 million of funding in 2021 for “technology investments and continued transformation” and taken on new management.
And freight disruptions still continue to rock the industry today, from Red Sea violence sidetracking ocean container shipments to a U.S. truckload freight sector that seems to insist every quarter that it has already bottomed out, Roadrunner CEO Chris Jamroz said in a recent interview. But amidst that chaos, the LTL sector occupies a business niche where demand is stable and rates are strong, he said.
Buoyed by those conditions, Roadrunner Freight has decided to double down on its strong suit, which it says is providing direct, long-haul, metro-to-metro shipping lanes. In contrast to competing national LTL carriers that operate complex hub-and-spoke networks, Roadrunner says its direct service style satisfies customers’ demands that their freight should have a minimum of rehandling, reloading, damage, loss, or shortage.
That focus on simple routes is designed to avoid the extra risk that can afflict small, single- and double-pallet loads moving through vast, complicated networks. Jamroz jokes that so many loads can be lost or delayed in that approach that LTL ought to stand for “less than likely” to go perfect. “There was a time when Roadrunner was trying to be all things to all people. The company ventured into areas and made partners where it shouldn’t have, and then it couldn’t deliver the quality service that our customers demand,” Jamroz said.
After burning its corporate hand on that stove, Roadrunner retrenched in 2021, then started expanding again in 2022, with a focus on new technology that could maintain constant visibility over every shipment, he said. Today, the company’s technology handles everything from routing, to picking, delivery, dispatch, and client-user interfaces. Once that foundation was in place, Roadrunner added the 135 new lanes—about a 10% increase per week over its previous route schedule—and is now recruiting about 150 additional drivers to support it, Jamroz said.
