Reference

Glossary

Every underlined term in the app is defined here. Hover the term anywhere in the app for the inline definition, or use the search below to look it up directly.

Health Metrics

Backhaul Coverage: Share of lanes that have a paired return. Higher is better — every unpaired lane leaks margin.
Concentration Risk: Share of revenue from the top customer (and top 3). Above 25% is usually worth watching; above 40% is critical — losing one customer can halve the business overnight.
Customer Concentration: When a large share of revenue comes from a small number of customers. High concentration = high single-point-of-failure risk.
Deadhead Drag: Annual dollar cost of empty miles across the portfolio. Computed as total empty miles × assumed cost-per-empty-mile.e.g. $480K/yr deadhead drag = 320K empty miles × $1.50/mile.
Network Score: Composite 0–100 score of how efficiently your portfolio is connected. Higher = less deadhead and more paired routes.

Asset Classification

Anchor: Top-tier revenue customer whose volume underwrites the business. Defend them first — losing one can halve cash cycle.e.g. A customer representing 25%+ of total revenue with tenure > 1 year.
At-risk: Customer with thin margin, concentration exposure, or volume trending down. Renegotiate rates or diversify.
Drag: Customer that loses money after empty-mile attribution. Even if the lane bill looks profitable, the deadhead they force erases the margin.
Growth: Customer whose volume is trending up month-over-month while margin holds. Invest in the relationship.
Headhaul-dominant: Strong consistent flow one direction, weak or no return. Candidate for expansion on the backhaul side.
Hedge: Customer whose lanes fill backhauls for other customers. Margin can look thin on paper while network contribution is high — don't drop them by looking at lane-level P&L alone.e.g. Their Des Moines → Chicago lane makes three other customers profitable.
Network Contribution: The annual dollar value a customer's lanes provide to other customers' backhauls. Lets you see value that lane-level P&L hides.
Orphan: A lane with no return load. The truck always deadheads back, eroding the margin of whatever went outbound.
Paired: A lane that has a return load identified on the reverse direction. Together the pair forms a profitable circuit.
Steady: Balanced contributor. No obvious risk or upside — hold.
Underutilized: Low shipment frequency relative to network capacity. Either grow with the customer or fold into a nearby lane.

Portfolio Actions

Defend: Protect a valuable but fragile asset. Typically a long-term contract, volume commitment, or relationship investment.
Divest: Drop an asset that persistently drains margin after repricing attempts. Freeing capacity beats forcing it.
Expand: Add a new lane or customer that addresses a specific portfolio weakness.
Hold: No action. The asset is doing its job.
Rebalance: Fix a structural inefficiency — find a backhaul partner, reprice a thin-margin lane, or redistribute volume.

Freight Primitives

Backhaul: A return load that covers the second half of a round trip. Turns an empty return into paid miles.e.g. If you haul from LA to Phoenix, the load you find in Phoenix going back to LA is the backhaul.
Circuit: Two or more lanes that chain together so a truck returns close to where it started with minimal empty miles.e.g. Chicago → Dallas → Houston → Chicago forms a three-leg circuit.
Deadhead Miles: Miles a truck drives empty (no freight loaded). Pure cost — no revenue to cover them.e.g. After delivering to Denver, running 300 empty miles to the next pickup in Kansas City.
Headhaul: The dominant outbound direction on a lane — typically the higher-rate half of a round trip.e.g. Chicago → Des Moines might be the headhaul; the return is the backhaul (often cheaper).
Lane: A specific origin → destination route where freight is regularly moved.e.g. Chicago → Dallas is a "lane" you operate on.
Regional Imbalance: When a region or city receives more inbound freight than outbound (or vice versa), forcing trucks to deadhead in one direction.e.g. Florida has more inbound than outbound, so trucks often leave empty.
Round Trip: A two-lane circuit where freight is available in both directions between the same two cities.
Triangle: A three-lane circuit connecting three cities. Often the highest-margin pattern when direct round-trips aren't available.e.g. Atlanta → Nashville → Memphis → Atlanta.