Logistics / Third-party logistics
C.H. Robinson: Checking missed less-than-truckload (LTL) pickups and deciding next steps
- Company
- C.H. Robinson
- Country
- United States
- Adoption stage
- In operation
- Source published
- Date basis
- The date the source was published. It can differ from the date adoption started.
- How the source was checked
- Read the full source text
The work problem
According to a press release C.H. Robinson issued on January 26, 2026, in less-than-truckload (LTL) shipping, where one truck carries freight from up to 20 different shippers, missed pickups were common across the industry when freight was not ready or a truck got stuck in traffic. Teams spent over half the day checking carrier websites, making calls, recording updates and notifying customers, and when a shipment's status could not be confirmed it was retendered, so another truck often arrived to find the freight still not ready or already picked up.
Technology and data
The company built two AI agents. One agent calls carriers about missed pickups and the other decides what steps to take, and together they can make 100 calls and 100 decisions simultaneously. The agents first assisted small and medium-size customers using the Freightquote platform and then, starting in July, were scaled across the company's LTL customers. The company shares the newly collected missed-pickup data with carriers every day to help them improve electronic communications, isolate operational issues at particular terminals and optimize their scheduling.
Results
According to the release, 95% of checks on missed LTL pickups have been automated, saving over 350 hours of manual work per day, and unnecessary return trips to pick up missed freight have been reduced by 42%. So far the agents resolve hundreds of shipments a day across more than 11,000 customers.
Limits and open questions
The release does not disclose the period or baseline for the 42% reduction or how many cases had to be handed back to people.
Sources
- C.H. Robinson launches AI agents to combat industrywide problem of missed LTL pickupschrobinson.com, Accessed
Compiled from public sources. These are not results from ATF Works customers.