In the complex domain of product delivery, 56 million tons of goods are moved daily in the U.S., with a substantial share being large, cumbersome items that demand specialized attention. Items like building materials, home appliances, and PVC pipes challenge traditional delivery methods.

Enter PartRunner: Co-founded by CEO Yosh Rozen and CPTO Tarun Aleti, this innovative platform is designed to transform last mile logistics for big and bulky goods. PartRunner has collaborated with some of the industry's most prominent brands, including Amazon, Ferguson, Cemex, Walmart, and Mercado Libre, reinforcing their position in the market. Drawing inspiration from on-demand and marketplace business models, PartRunner seamlessly connects businesses with a vast network of independent truckers and nimble fleets, ensuring transparency, simplicity, and unparalleled service.

One of the most notable milestones in PartRunner's journey was the shift from their home grown geolocation solution to a robust HyperTrack integration. This strategic move led to a significant leap in driver location accuracy, skyrocketing from 60% to an impressive 95+%.

Tarun mentions, "With Hypertrack, we not only managed to standardize our response times but also witnessed a staggering 55% reduction in our Google costs."

By integrating data and technology through HyperTrack, PartRunner has set a new gold standard in driver tracking, route enhancement, and digital transparency.

Dive into a detailed transcript of our session, edited for clarity, to bring you insights directly from PartRunner's co-founders.

Watch the full session video and note the highlights below.

PartRunner: Gig Workers in Big & Bulky Last Mile Logistics

So my name is Yosh Rozen. I'm the CEO and Founder of PartRunner. This is Tarun he is Co-Founder and CTO of PartRunner.

And we're going be talking today about last mile logistics for the big and bulky is and how we work with gig workers. So for starters, let me just so for starters, let's start with understanding the product space and how products get moved.

So in the US alone, 56 million tons of product move every single day. Some of these products are small, in size, such as food and beverage, small electronics and small appliances, while others tend to believe tend to be bulkier in size, whether it's cement bags, home appliances, PVC pipes. boilers, think about units that can weigh more than 60 pounds. And all of these products get moved within their small vehicles, so motorcycles, cars, and SUVs, to other larger vehicles, such as box trucks, flatbeds, and many times require special equipment to move it.

So the problem we're solving at PartRunner are companies that move 1000s of products every single day, rely on multiple small providers that are either little to no tech, or no specialization in handling big and bulky products.

And this causes two big problems.

The first one is that dealing with multiple providers that have no tech creates a lot of lack of communication and transparency regarding the delivery process. And by not having specialization on this big and bulky world.

They can respond to requests beyond small parcel beyond moving small goods, whether it's same day or in hot season. And this creates a lot of operational inefficiencies.

Last Mile Logistics: Challenges in the Big and Bulky Segment

“Big and bulky refers to product that's non uniform has big lengths heavy weights, and requires large vehicles and specialized equipment It's growing annually to 15 to 20%.”

So to diving deeper into what is big and bulky, so big and bulky refers to product that's non uniform has big lengths heavy weights, and requires large vehicles and specialized equipment to load and unload these items.

So think about as you can see, and in the second and third picture where you see the PVC pipes or boilers where it's single units that can weigh more than 70 pounds.

Or as you can see in picture one and four where it's a conglomeration of small packages but moved in pallets. We're excited about this base because it accounts for 20% of last mile. It's growing annually to 15 to 20%.

And it has 3x the cost of small parcel. So a little bit deeper into what we consider internally. While we move big and bulky items. There's really three big areas.

The first one is product considerations. So order weight, whether it's the single item or total items, whether the products are palletized or not.

And whether it's standardized packaging or not standardized packaging, then requirements to load and unload this product, whether it can be manually loaded or unloaded, or you need mechanical support, like equipment or special handling.

And last but not least, the specifications that pick up and drop off whether we need specific a requirements like PPE are we delivering to dock levels, distances, etc.

PartRunner's Solution to Big & Bulky Logistics

“At the core, what we do is we have a flexible fleet network of drivers that adapt to the needs of our customers, we focus on transparency, ease of use, and great service.”

So PartRunner, will connect companies to a network of hundreds of independent truckers and small fleets. It's a logistics marketplace.

So similar to Uber, we don't own any of these vehicles or hire any drivers as employees. They're all third party. And we work with this network and pair them up using technology to companies that need distribution.

At the core, what we do is we have a flexible fleet network of drivers that adapt to the needs of our customers, we focus on transparency, ease of use, and great service.

And we have vehicles, primarily that range from 1.5 ton trucks and above, so three ton trucks, five tons, 10 tons, etc. And we primarily do last mile and middle mile services through this network.

So far,  now we're doing around 3600 routes per month, we do over 27,000 stops for a month, and have around 1000 active drivers affiliated with our platform. We work in four cities in the US and in six cities in Mexico.

And we work with some of the most prominent brands, like Amazon, we worked with Ferguson, we worked with Cemex, Walmart, Mercado Libre, and so forth.

Our team is comprised of individuals that have expertise in three big areas. The first one is digital logistics. The second one is traditional logistics. And the third one is big and bulky.

So companies like XPO Logistics, DHL, Cargamos, Amazon, Convoy, Cabify, LalaMove so many others. Up next will be Tarun who will explain how we bring this network into life through the use of data and technology. Tarun, all yours.

Thanks, Yosh, for explaining clearly what big and bulky is and how PartRunner is solving it.

So for me, approaching this same problem statement from product and technology point of view - what we have learned is our customers come back to PartRunner again and again.

And we're able to grow with existing customers on three fundamentals that we are able to repeat, one is fulfillment. Second is visibility. And third one is the customer support.

Mastering Key Challenges in Logistics for Gig Worker Growth & Last Mile Deliveries

“We're able to grow with existing customers on three fundamentals that we are able to repeat,  one is fulfillment. Second is visibility. And third one is the customer support.”

Now keeping this in mind, what we found is to make this happen continuously day in day out with every route that is happening, , there are four key challenges that we need to master or that are kind of important in this process to work better.

I think the first critical point was knowing where our drivers are Especially because we work with gig workers, and with fleet operators. So it's important to know where drivers are.

The second one is our ability to know how close they are to some of the pickup points. It could be from their home, because they're doing scheduled deliveries, it could be same day because like, you know, it's like there's an on demand quick request that is coming in and we want to dispatch a driver.

The third one would be in the long run, it would be like our ability to optimize the routes. Today with every customer, we are doing single routes, we tend not to mix it, but tomorrow there will be an ability for us to, you know, to optimize and reduce the time of each route.

And the last one which kind of doubles down on the visibility aspect, which is showing our customers clearly on where our drivers are and what are the previous actions and steps they have taken.

So just moving forward, so taking some of each of these points for the launch to begin with the next slide.

Challenges in Driver Tracking in Last Mile Logistics

Yeah, so, if you look into the tracking of drivers, , this has become extremely challenging, especially if you look in terms of the timeline, . So around 2018 The initial regulations have started coming in, in apps ability to track users live location  thing before 2018 It was pretty seamless, like you know it could something easily be dragged upon with simple open source plugins . But some 2018 Onwards and that was around PartRunner started. So it the regulation has become very strict in started with Europe, then it went to us . And then finally I think around in 2020 Especially in the iOS it kind of become extremely difficult to track driver location. So you had to continuously update based upon the new Apple updates, either you have to update the plugins, you have to continuously test in different mobile phones. And then parallely, even in the Android phones, it has become extremely challenging to track.

Behavioral Aspects of Tracking Gig Workers and Teams in the Field

And then when I'm saying tracking is not just like where the driver seat is also about the behavioral aspect – How do you track even when someone is not using the phone? [For instance,] sometimes they put the phone, put our app behind the screen sometimes or using the app. So we have seen time and again, there has not been one solution or one open source plugin that was helping us solve or third party service that was solving this.

Difficulty of Reliably of Tracking Work Completed by Gig Workers

And honestly, like looking back, we spent quite a bit of time solving the same problem that was a recurring problem. Anything that would have tried would have worked for two, three months. And then there will be an update or there'd been older phone or there'll be a new phone, something something that would be causing us to again relook into solving this.


Optimizing Operations with HyperTrack APIs

"HyperTrack have helped us in terms of standardizing the response time and also reducing our API costs"

And in 2022, luckily, like we got the introduction of HyperTrack. So we started working with them closely on how to improve our traction. And we have seen consistently remarkable results.

Improving Accuracy of Tracking Driver Location

We improved accuracy from around 60%, towards 95% plus. When I'm saying accuracy, it's also important to understand it's not our ability to just get location once in lifetime, It's about continuous, it's about the repeatability and trustable aspect of it, before we had a majority of the drivers where the location would be like once in a while get updated, but now it's the other way around, Unless it's a specific driver behavior.

We more or less know, wherever drivers are. And what it does primarily for us is it improves the internal operations confidence, it improves our ability to build routes and also visibility to customer , knowing where our drivers are variability show “Hey, this is where he is,” and our ETAs and communications they all have considerably had a positive impact due to this.

Finding Nearby Drivers with HyperTrack APIs

Then I want to go to the second one, which is about how do you find nearby drivers, thing is once we have a better traction of where our drivers are. So traditionally, the approach we have taken is based upon the pickup locations, we used to kind of continuously calculate the distances times, so it was a pretty heavy uplift in terms of time and cost for us.

And even here, some of the features within HyperTrack have helped us in terms of standardizing the response time and also reducing our API costs, Instead of us calculating time.

And again, like, you know, the distance between to our driver location to some of our pickup spots, we are able to kind of use HyperTrack API's and have been able to give us like the response that is helping us in like, on the side, if you see I kind of removed some names. But on the right side, this is what we have been able to build  for any incoming delivery.

Now we are able to ping our nearby drivers about a potential trip. And because we know the distance, because we know the location, we know that distance, and we have an ETA for everyone and our even the pay and everything can get more customized to driver locations.

Optimizing Gig Worker Routes and Enhancing Customer Visibility

Next slide. So what is coming next?

I think the last two aspects, which I covered was like, you know, the availability to optimize routes and bringing in visibility to customers .

And this is where we do see a lot of potential with working further with HyperTrack in terms of integrations .

When I think once we get all of our ongoing routes onto the platform, we'll be able to better decide where our new pickup stops that are coming in, which route they can go into.

And second, which is I think it's very critical is the Uber experience where you can literally track where the driver has been where he is heading; I think that kind of visibility to our customers would add a lot of value and also it improves the trust in terms of where our drivers are and the service we are providing

HyperTrack: Enabling Focus on Fulfillment, Visibility, and Customer Support

Then my last final thoughts would be like, you know, for me, like where HyperTrack makes a difference is I feel like PartRunner as a company, which is focusing on big and bulky. I feel like we should be focusing on how we bring in the fulfillment –  how do you bring in the supply? How do you bring in visibility?  Some of these aspects and visibility is where like HyperTrack helps us in like not resolving it.

And the last one is customer support, which is very critical.

How do we build an excellent support system, where any time a customer has a challenge, he does not need to wait for five to 10 minutes for someone to come in, instead, he gets like within like a minute response.

So we are able to kind of focus on our core aspects, that will be our differentiators, And leave some of the ongoing challenges which everyone must be facing, in terms of finding drivers trackability, and optimization and all of those things. They're able to use HyperTrack as an enabler for us.

Yosh, do you want to close it out?

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Please visit https://hypertrack.com/gigworksummit for information on Gig Work Summit 2023, a virtual summit hosted by HyperTrack for the community building next generation tech for gig work and on-demand delivery.