Freight AI pilots succeed. Production deployments often don't. Augment CEO Harish Abbott on the change management gap — and what ops leaders need to do before the tech even matters.
The freight boom arrived. For some carriers, it arrived too late. We explain why in today's feature. Plus: real gouda fellas, satisfactory doesn't mean safe, LTL is waking up, and more.
Here's your weekly roundup of what’s trending across the freight industry on X, LinkedIn, Reddit, and YouTube.
Plus, the offshore dispatchers your safety score can't catch, why Hormuz stays closed even after the war ends, what Triumph Financial's invoice volumes say about where freight is headed, and more.
Happy Hump Day. The Top 100 freight brokerage rankings just dropped, and the moves at the top tell you everything about who actually won the downturn.
Plus:
and more.
🔌 Your Eld Is Lying. Or Someone Made It. According to Craig Fuller and Matthew Leffler on FreightWaves, offshore dispatchers in Serbia, Ukraine, and Russia are remotely editing driver logs, pushing some truckers past 20-hour days. Their key point: because these dispatchers operate abroad, the FBI can't touch them when a crash happens. Fuller and Leffler also note the FMCSA still allows ELD manufacturers to self-certify their own devices, meaning there's no independent verification that the hardware can't be tampered with. Watch here.
💳 Freight Factoring Is Having A Good Quarter. Triumph Financial processed 1.68 million invoices in Q1, up 20.5% year-over-year, with 31 fewer employees than a year ago. Average invoice size rose 8.3% from Q4, driven partly by diesel surcharges feeding into every load. The Payments segment EBITDA margin jumped from under 6% a year ago to 34% this quarter. More invoices means more loads moving. It's a clean read on where the market actually is right now.
⚓ Hormuz Won't Reopen Overnight. Even if the Iran war ended tomorrow, expect months before shipping normalizes. Iran mined the strait, and a military source told FreightWaves it took the U.S. six months to clear mines after the Iraq war, with a map. Nobody has a map this time. Marine insurers are charging up to 5% of hull value per transit, up to 10x pre-war rates. The diesel pressure on domestic carriers isn't resolving on a news cycle; it's structural.
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Every year, Transport Topics drops its Top 100 Logistics Companies list, the definitive ranking of North America's largest 3PLs by gross revenue.
For today, we're focusing on the sub-list of top freight brokerages.
The numbers reflect 2025 performance. Here's what changed, who climbed, and who's gone.
Rounding out the Top 10:
C.H. Robinson holds the #1 spot on the brokerage list, with $11.56 billion in 2025 gross brokerage revenue, down from $11.73 billion in 2024.
On the overall logistics list, the picture is starker: total gross logistics revenue fell 12.3% from an estimated $16.8 billion in 2024 to $14.77 billion in 2025 as Robinson shed headcount and leaned into automation. Net revenue held nearly flat, $2.56 billion in 2025 versus $2.56 billion in 2024, meaning margins actually improved as gross shrank.
Now that the company has the CBS/60 Minutes chameleon carrier fallout, reputational pressure should be added to the math.
Adriana Pulley
TQL moved from #3 to #2, overtaking J.B. Hunt on the brokerage list.
Gross brokerage revenue grew from $6.82 billion in 2024 to $7.36 billion in 2025 — an 8% gain through one of the hardest freight markets in recent memory.
J.B. Hunt slipped from #2 to #3 on the brokerage list despite holding 2025 gross brokerage revenue nearly flat at $7.08 billion. Hunt didn't lose ground so much as TQL caught up, a reflection of TQL's aggressive growth rather than any Hunt stumble.
A few companies stand out for rank movement:
Jerome Washington
The rankings reveal who survived the downturn with pricing discipline intact and who bought their way to growth. The brokerages that held pricing discipline and invested in relationships during the soft market are now pulling away from the pack.
If you're a smaller broker competing against TQL or Arrive for the same shipper relationships, the competitive gap just got wider.
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🤔 Craig Fuller Theorizes. Some senior executives at large brokers believe C.H. Robinson actually wants to lose the Supreme Court broker liability case; the theory being a ruling against brokers would devastate smaller operators and consolidate volume toward the giants.
🗽 Elon Musk Weighs In. What started as a niche compliance debate inside trucking just landed in front of Musk's 230 million X followers after he reposted Duffy's statement on New York's non-domiciled compliance strike.
💸 Trump Discourages Refunds. After CBP launched a $166 billion tariff refund portal, Trump told companies on CNBC he would "remember" those who don't file, just a day after the portal went live.
🚛 Ohio Turnpike Rogue Carriers. 315 trucking companies owe $5.2 million in unpaid Ohio Turnpike tolls, the latest data point in a growing picture of carriers operating outside the system.
📦 Saia Expands Northeast. Saia opened a new 74-door terminal in York, PA, strengthening its coverage across the mid-Atlantic and Northeast corridor.
🕵️ Super Ego Lawsuit Details. A class-action lawsuit reveals how Super Ego and eight connected carriers systematically defrauded over 1,000 owner-operators, including altering C.H. Robinson load confirmations to pocket the difference between what brokers paid and what drivers were told.
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Freight AI pilots succeed. Production deployments often don't. Augment CEO Harish Abbott on the change management gap — and what ops leaders need to do before the tech even matters.
The freight boom arrived. For some carriers, it arrived too late. We explain why in today's feature. Plus: real gouda fellas, satisfactory doesn't mean safe, LTL is waking up, and more.
Here's your weekly roundup of what’s trending across the freight industry on X, LinkedIn, Reddit, and YouTube.
Spot rates just hit record highs, while the carrier pool is shrinking. Plus: shippers get a win on trucking liability, the oldest tax in trucking is on the chopping block, Ohio puts 5,000 CDL holders on notice, and more.
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