Transfusion, an Internet-based freight and space matching company, is set to take the freight industry into the information age.
Transfusion, developed by Cape-based software company Solution Dynamix, allows freight companies, transport brokers and vehicle owners to communicate freight availability and requirements.
"The old structure of matching space to freight in the industry involved hours of phone calls and high personal marketing costs," says Transfusion`s creator, Clinton Long.
"With Transfusion, this is eliminated by the use of the Internet to automatically match freight with available space."
Long says the transport industry has not made significant progress in the past decade in terms of the operations underplaying freight/space transactions, and a change was needed.
The company says research by Statistics SA shows that more than one-third of the distance covered by private sector enterprise carriers from 1997 to 1999 was unladen distance, indicating a need for improved efficiency.
The Transfusion system, which was launched recently, makes use of e-mail, the Internet, SMS and WAP technology to offer users access to its database of freight and space.
More than 2 000 manufacturers and 600 transport companies have subscribed to the e-mailing system, with five pantechnicon-sized vehicles being filled every day.
The company acknowledges that this is "not much in the grand scheme of things" but says it is a highly impressive start for a young company.
The Transfusion system is powered by the company`s distributed database architecture, LiquidData, with the backbone of the system being its central database.
The database contains information on all available trucks and loads, as well as other information needed by users. Client sites also have local databases which contain the central database information (subject to visibility filters) and information unique to specific clients.
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