Similar to the insurance industry, ground transportation executives rely on accurate long-range forecasts for setting rates, and advanced data to back up the decisions they make. Weather is a crucial component for understanding the pain points that the ground transportation industry continually faces. Severe weather brings risk along with it, and it can lead to costly delays, vehicle damage, and strained communications.

Pulling weather insights from that data results in a higher level of confidence in your operational plans. Data-driven ground transportation solutions can turn weather and traffic into an advantage rather than a detriment. Here at The Weather Company, an IBM business, we aim to deliver the most direct, technologically advanced, and economical methods so you can tell when the shortest path may not always be the fastest or safest and adjust your route accordingly.

Let’s explore how data-driven solutions and weather insights can reduce risks and smoothen your ground transportation operations.

Effectively Mitigating Risk in Ground Transportation

Numerous variables make ground transportation vulnerable to the strain of weather. The margin for error is microscopic, and the potential inefficiencies that are a direct result of weather and traffic can be disruptive.

Each day, ground transportation executives face the risk of wasted trucking hours, dangerous road conditions and congestion. Natural exposure to weather leads to financial consequences for the ground transportation operations.

In this industry, utilizing advanced weather data and insights can get in front of mitigating the potential risk that your drivers face before the wheels even get rolling. When the margin of error is this tight, mismanaging risk leads to a loss of revenue, and small mistakes become significant problems.

Preventing the Domino Effect

Being prepared for whatever the weather puts on your plate has one overarching advantage that can’t be understated: preventing the domino effect.

Scheduling for truck drivers is fickle. Dealing with one problem can be the precursor to a laundry list of issues, setting everybody’s schedule back and resulting in an excessively expensive operation. Keeping drivers in the loop so that they know what is going to happen down the road with traffic, weather, road conditions allows you to better plan and base your decisions on safety and efficiency.

Weather insights that help you avoid potential issues will also help keep workers safe and secure. Recent ground transportation efficiency research revealed that 28% of highway crashes and 19% of all fatalities are weather-related incidents. By leveraging insights, the best route for all parties will be easy to identify, and truck drivers won’t be forced to deal with the stress of beating the weather when conditions are less than ideal.

How Weather Solutions Help With Ground Transportation Efficiency

According to a recent study conducted by IBM’s Institute of Business Value, 69% of ground transportation executives see weather as having a negative impact on their organization’s revenue. On the other hand, only 10% view weather as having a positive effect on revenue. We are here to tell you that data-driven solutions continue to improve and they are readily available. They can improve your overall efficiency while protecting your workers and cargo. Eventually, this will improve the bottom line.

Having access to the best data allows ground transportation companies to plan, stay safe, be flexible, and be consistent. Efficiency on the road and in the decision-making process is paramount, and this is why The Weather Company’s ground transportation dashboard takes weather and traffic and turns them into advantages.

The Operations Dashboard for Ground Transportation can play a significant role in lessening the impact of these inefficiencies by providing comprehensive weather, traffic, and safety data that includes current weather conditions from radar and satellites and road-specific weather forecasts. There is so much to be gained by investing in advanced weather insights for both the short-term and long-term.

Leveraging Data-Driven Solutions to Improve Operations

Weather of any type, from a one-off rainstorm to a prolonged snowstorm, can negatively affect the ground transportation industry from the beginning of to finish, and things don’t get easier from there. Weather insights and data-driven solutions for ground transportation can be used to leverage better business and safety decisions, which makes a pretty great case for strengthening your bottom line.

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