ARL RELEASES E-QUOTE PLATFORM FOR TRANSPORT PROVIDERS

ARL Consulting announces the release of their ARL e-Quote Platform, which allows transport providers to give freight quotes along with schedules on-line to their customers and partners. The ARL e-Quote Platform is the second module after ARL e-Schedule in a series of commercial e-business offerings on the arl-shipping.com portal, building up to a full e-Yield solution. The platform can be requested from ARL’s portal for shipping solutions, arl-shipping.com.

ARL e-Quote Platform is suitable for deep sea shipping lines, short sea container, trailer, ro-ro or ferry services, multi-modal operators, barge & rail link, NVOs, transport agents and LCL transport companies, who wish to offer self-service e-services to their customers.

The freight quotes are provided online by the e-Quote engine in response to the customer’s specific requirements, allowing the transport provider to market differentiated prices for different transit time or handling service levels, reflecting different cost patterns like transport vehicle bunkers consumption, or multi-modal combinations like sea-air versus sea-sea, offered in the same transport corridor.

Relevant surcharges are added and made visible to the customer requesting a freight quote; quotes are e-mailed to the customer upon request and stored for the transport provider to follow-up on. If the transport provider offers door-door services, pick-up and delivery costs are added to the freight quote. Freight quotes are made available for on-line queries on the transport provider’s own web-site powered by the arl-shipping.com e-Quote engine.

ARL e-Quote Platform is a web application with strong security, authentication, and encrypted data exchange requiring internet connection and Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 or higher from the transport provider as well as their customers.

On ARL Consulting’s portal for shipping solutions, arl-shipping.com, interested transport providers can request an on-line demonstration and sign-up for using the solution.