C.H. Robinson has rolled out an Asset Management System (AMS) inside its Drop Trailer Plus program, wiring thousands of trailers with real‑time telemetry and feeding that data into its Navisphere platform to sharpen decisions on pool size, placement and turns. The move, first reported in trade outlets this week, aims squarely at the chronic blind spots that make drop-and-hook efficient on paper but wasteful in practice.
What’s new here isn’t just GPS dots on a map. The company says AMS blends trailer telematics, geofences and facility-level mapping, then layers proactive alerts for dwell breaches and idle assets—capabilities designed to reduce gate checks, speed turns and cut detention. Location pings can refresh as often as every five seconds, and performance scorecards track utilization and dwell by lane, site or carrier. Robinson also stresses that the view extends beyond its own pool to participating contract carriers, with broader rollout continuing through 2026. Scale matters: more than 10,000 trailers cycle daily through the program supporting about 800,000 annual shipments.
The timing is notable. Drop-and-hook now accounts for nearly half of U.S. truckload activity, yet many shipper and carrier teams still manage trailer pools with spreadsheets and radio calls. By consolidating asset status, location and inventory signals in one system, Robinson is targeting the friction points—yard hunts, mismatched pool sizes, uncertain ETAs—that sap productivity for both docks and drivers.
For shippers, the promise is operational: AMS data should make it easier to right-size pools by site and season, enforce dwell targets with exceptions-based alerts, and sequence labor against live ETAs rather than best guesses. That can mean fewer late gate scrambles, steadier throughput and less unplanned overtime—small wins that compound across multi-site networks.
For carriers—especially those running power-only—greater trailer transparency can translate into more predictable hooks and higher trailer turns. A multi-fleet view also helps brokers and asset carriers close loops and reduce empty repositioning, improving revenue hours without adding tractors. If AMS reliably flags idle assets and surfacing dwell risks early, smaller fleets could see fewer “dead” trips to search for equipment and more time under load.
The competitive angle is just as important. Trailer visibility has been a patchwork of OEM telematics, aftermarket sensors and yard systems. By baking a cross-fleet, exceptions-first view into a large drop network, Robinson is putting pressure on yard management and visibility vendors to meet shippers where they work—and to prove they can match 5‑second telemetry with the workflow polish dock teams actually use. Robinson, for its part, is positioning the combination of scale and analytics as the differentiator.
There are open questions. Data-sharing across mixed fleets can be messy, and the value hinges on how quickly AMS ingests outside telematics feeds, normalizes site geofences and translates noise into clear actions for planners and yard teams. Pricing and change-management will matter too: the fastest ROI will come where AMS insights are tied directly to dwell targets, pool commitments and carrier scorecards that everyone sees and acts on.
Still, the direction of travel is clear. With fresh coverage from industry media and a formal launch this week, Robinson’s AMS pushes drop trailer closer to a real-time, managed asset model—less “set and forget,” more “measure and move.” For an operational workhorse that touches roughly half the truckload market, that’s a meaningful step toward turning trailer time into shipper service and carrier revenue.
Sources: FreightWaves, C.H. Robinson, DC Velocity, Container News
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