Trucking and technology at scale: A look at Variant with Josh Smith
On Tuesday, Josh Smith, vice president at Variant and over-the-road operations at U.S. Xpress, spoke to FreightWaves about the Variant program and how technology and operations are vital to success in trucking.
During the interview, Smith highlighted the evolution of the Variant brand and how the organizational structure seeks to make life better for drivers on the road. Smith noted the Variant model is...
Although a first glance at some of the numbers on the Variant segment of U.S. Xpress seems to reveal little improvement in its performance, CEO Eric Fuller told analysts that the best is yet to come.
“Variant is the growth engine for our company, and improving its financial results is critical for our long-term success,” Fuller said Thursday.
The numbers at Variant that looked better were figures that looked good at all truckload carriers in the first quarter. For example, Variant’s average...
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – La iniciativa Variant de U.S. Xpress -construir un transportista de camiones radicalmente diferente dentro de uno ya existente- lleva mucho tiempo promocionando lo que considera una característica fuerte: una mejor retención de los conductores.
Los resultados del cuarto trimestre de U.S. Xpress (NYSE: USX) fueron los primeros en los que se presentaron las estadísticas operativas de Variant. Desafortunadamente, lo que mostraron fue que mientras la retención de conductores en...
Scottsdale, Arizona-based digital freight procurement platform Emerge named Cameron Ramsdell its chief operating officer Monday morning. Ramsdell, who joins Chief Executive Officer Andrew Leto and President George Abernathy on the company’s executive team, said he plans to focus on the capacity side of Emerge’s marketplace.
Previously, Ramsdell served for nearly three years as the president of Variant, an automated digital fleet inside U.S. Xpress (NYSE: USX). Prior to Variant, Ramsdell was at...
https://www.freightwaves.com/news/ramsdell-joins-emerge-as-chief-operating-officer
Aurora Innovation Inc. will collaborate with U.S. Xpress Enterprises Inc. to sift the best lanes for driverless trucking as Aurora fine-tunes its system for commercialization.
Working with U.S. Xpress (NYSE: USX) is interesting because the Chattanooga, Tennessee-based carrier has deep ties with rival TuSimple Holdings as an investor, adviser and likely customer for International LT Class 8 tractors that TuSimple (NASDAQ: TSP) is developing with Navistar.
But since for-hire trucking firms use...
U.S. Xpress broke out metrics for its Variant initiative for the first time, and one of the key selling points for Variant — lower driver turnover — deteriorated sharply over the course of the year.
In an overall fourth-quarter earnings report that had little good news, U.S. Xpress (NYSE: USX) reported that its quarterly turnover for Variant had worsened to 95% by the final three months of the year. That marks a significant slide from quarterly turnover that was 58% in the first quarter, 74% in...
https://www.freightwaves.com/news/variants-metrics-at-u-s-xpress-show-a-second-half-deterioration
Even before truck driver shortages were making headlines due to the coronavirus, long-haul driver turnover averaged 94% on an annualized basis. With the additional challenges imposed by the pandemic, some companies’ turnover rates are as high as 150%.
“The trucking industry is short 80,000 drivers, a record high,” said Chris Spear, president and CEO of American Trucking Associations. “That’s a 30% increase from before the pandemic.”
For U.S. Xpress Enterprises, the fifth-largest asset-based...
https://www.freightwaves.com/news/transforming-talent-acquisition
Un importante ejecutivo del transportador de carga de camiones U.S. Xpress que dirigía la muy promocionada iniciativa Variant ha sido despedido.
U.S. Xpress (NYSE: USX), en una presentación 8-K el lunes, dijo que Cameron Ramsdell había sido “despedido”. No se dio ninguna causa para el despido.
Ramsdell, aunque se le identifica más con Variant, también fue presidente de la división de transporte por carretera de la compañía.
La salida de Ramsdell de U.S. Xpress se produce justo después de que la...
A leading executive at truckload carrier U.S. Xpress who headed the highly touted Variant initiative has been dismissed.
U.S. Xpress (NYSE: USX), in an 8-K filing Monday, said that Cameron Ramsdell had been “terminated.” No cause for the dismissal was given.
Ramsdell, although identified most closely with Variant, was also president of the company’s legacy over-the-road division.
Ramsdell’s exit from U.S. Xpress comes just after the company reached a milestone it had projected for all of 2021: It...
https://www.freightwaves.com/news/u-s-xpress-fires-head-truckload-exec-and-leader-of-variant
With Variant, the startup within U.S. Express that is about to wrap up its first full calendar year of operation, the company’s CEO told an audience of investors Thursday that sequential financial improvement at the company is likely to begin in the first quarter of 2022.
The third-quarter earnings of U.S. Xpress were a clear disappointment, with the company’s truckload operating ratio rising to 98% from 94.6% a year earlier and the consolidated adjusted OR coming in at 98.5%, weakening from...