By Gary Horton, COO, ACI Transport
October 8, 2025
The logistics sector has operated in silos for many years. Each shipper, broker, and carrier uses their own systems, technologies, and procedures, which are often disjointed and designed to meet only their specific needs and individual requirements. Ultimately, it has caused supply chain fragmentation—and it comes at a cost.
However, the industry is changing, and more than 250 logistics leaders from both the shipping and provider sides report that companies are turning to technology to solve their many challenges. Companies are now looking to transform their functions to consider things like speed, transparency, operational efficiency, predictability, and greater flexibility in their operations. They are also looking at innovative digital platforms that can reimagine the flow of information in logistics.
CarriedAway by ACI Transport is one example of a proprietary software platform that is bridging the long-standing communication gap between shippers and carriers, changing the way these parties work together.
A Platform That Can Connect
CarriedAway is a progressive web application developed entirely in-house to create a system that unifies every party in the supply chain by making connectivity, transparency, and operational efficiency the rule rather than the exception.
Traditional platforms of the past have been expensive, rigid, and were primarily designed to serve only shippers. They offer little flexibility or customization, and, for carriers, those systems create a high-friction process. The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic further exposed those weaknesses because it highlighted the flaws that existed long before. Remote work demanded faster and more flexible digital solutions that could support rapidly shifting changes in operations.
As a result, ACI Transport set out to revamp CarriedAway to address the inefficiencies and disconnects that existed in the transportation management space. The platform was rebuilt within a multi-tenant environment, allowing shippers as well as carriers to operate in their own customized and personalized portals. However, despite its adaptability, the platform still offers a single shared ecosystem where all stakeholders can interact.
Accessibility is also central to its design. CarriedAway can be used from any computer or mobile device and has a downloadable app available. These convenient and various points of access allow carriers who are on the road, shippers who are in the office, and brokers who are coordinating between the two to access the platform whenever and wherever they need.
Transparency is the True Impact
While the technology on its own is a key part of the platform, what is more important is what that technology translates to. It brings transparency, which is a value that ACI Transport, as a company, places at the center of its operations.
CarriedAway tracks shipments through multiple stages of transport, providing both shippers and carriers with real-time insight into operational requirements, progress, and delivery timelines. Having that type of transparency eliminates the guesswork and reduces the friction in what can often become a strained relationship.
For shippers, the benefit is being able to have improved visibility into vehicle status, having fewer surprises, and faster delivery. For carriers, the platform reduces administrative issues, streamlines coordination efforts, and helps to create a level playing field where their needs are considered alongside those of the shipper.
Overall, it sets new expectations for both speed and transparency, improving outcomes for ACI’s customers, while also pushing the entire supply chain to perform better.
Speed, Savings, and Performance
Having delivered measurable results is what matters most with any type of software platform. For customers, CarriedAway has been a game-changer in terms of delivery speed and cost savings.
For example, on average, ACI delivers shipments three to five days faster than competitors because of the platform. The efficiency of that translates to convenience and that convenience translates into millions of dollars in avoided depreciation costs, improved cash flow, and better fleet utilization. Those numbers outperform competitor benchmarks by 20–30% in key logistics metrics.
The CarriedAway platform sets a new service standard that helps raise the bar for performance across entire supply chains. For example, one large fleet management customer initially onboarded with ACI at a limited scale but quickly expanded to moving thousands of vehicles per month across eight different locations. The company accomplished this all while being managed by the same two account representatives. Now, the company consistently reports cycle times that are three to four days faster than competitors. Clients like this one regularly share feedback showing ACI consistently ranks at the top among their peers, which creates a ripple effect of improvement as other vendors are pushed to elevate their own service levels.
What makes platforms like CarriedAway valuable is that they challenge the assumption that technology in logistics must primarily serve shippers. Instead, the technology embraces a model that is mutually beneficial for all parties.
No single stakeholder today can achieve efficiency on their own and success truly depends on systems that connect rather than divide. CarriedAway is an example of how that vision can be realized, as it raises the bar for what shippers and carriers should now expect from their digital tools and performance standards.
About the author
Gary Horton is the Chief Operating Officer at ACI Transport, a premier freight brokerage firm that specializes in the coordination of multimodal transportation of finished motor vehicles and general commodity freight. You can contact Gary at [email protected].
