Ryder is expanding a four-year-old, nationwide business-to-business network called Coop that matches available trucks from fleet owners in a variety of modes, Uber-like, with shippers that have a temporary need for a burst of capacity to meet demand in a tight market for assets.
Coop, available in 25 major markets, opened up earlier this year in new markets in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Illinois, areas where there has been a lot of activity, said Romain Rousseau, General Manager of Coop by Ryder.
“We started look at these markets between February and April, and now we’re in launch phase,” Rousseau said. “It takes bit of time for the supply of vehicles to build up before a market is fully launched.”
Coop launched in Atlanta in 2018 and now offers more than 50,000 vehicles from a network of 10,000 providers including box trucks, tractors and trailers and refrigerated vehicles.
While the bulk of volume in Coop is driven by first- and middle-mile, over-the-road tractor-trailers used by construction, manufacturing and food and beverage companies, Ryder is starting to see some pickup and interest in last mile for retail and ecommerce.
“We’re starting to see more demand in the light duty segment,” said Rousseau. “It’s not the bulk of the volume but we’re working on ways to deploy more cargo vans in cities to companies looking to rent for last-mile needs.”
Seasonality and other factors driving lulls in demand for fleet owners is what makes Coop go, Rousseau said. “Sometime companies are dealing with a driver shortage, and that leads to equipment sitting idle while they’re in the process of hiring and shut down operations for a period of time,” he said. “They’re losing business activity, and Coop creates new ways for them to offset the cost of running equipment.”
Companies looking to rent out vehicles set up an account on Coop, add their vehicles to the platform and receive requests directly from renters via an app. When the owner confirms availability, they come and pick up the truck. Ryder provides vetting of renters and insurance, helping with roadside assistance and other services, and takes a 20% cut of each transaction. Coop also integrates with a number of telematics providers to help with things like tracking and reconciliation of mileage trip records to ensure accurate billing and payment.
Ryder says Coop pays on average more than $3,700 in monthly revenue for businesses that rent out their vehicles, and is expected to generate over $20 million in collective earnings for them this year. The company also said the platform is seeing 250% annual growth.
In May, Ryder announced in a filing with the SEC it was the target of a takeover bid by Miami-based private equity firm HG Vora Capital Management, which valued it at the time at about $4.4 billion.