Matt Harb on FreightWaves’ Loaded & Rolling: How REPOWR Is Powering the Future of Trailer Sharing

At this year’s F3: Future of Freight Conference, REPOWR’s VP of Product and Operations Matt Harb sat down with Thomas Wasson on FreightWaves’ Loaded & Rolling to talk about one of freight’s most overlooked assets - trailers.

In the interview, Matt shares how REPOWR is building a universal trailer network that helps large carriers, brokers, and owner-operators turn idle trailers into revenue while reducing the waste and cost of empty miles. He also unveils the latest product innovations from an AI-powered trailer assistant “Hitch” to capacity planning and telematics integration tools, all designed to make trailers as flexible and intelligent as freight itself.

Watch the full interview below and read the transcript to learn how REPOWR is helping the industry move smarter, faster, and with greater visibility.

Highlights from the Conversation

• 30% of trailers sit idle at any given time - REPOWR’s platform helps put them to work.
• The new capacity planning tool gives trailer managers real-time visibility into surplus, shortages, and revenue opportunities.
• The AI assistant Hitch recommends the best available trailers based on user preferences and network data.
• Carrier vetting and verification through Highway ensure secure, fraud-free transactions.
• The upcoming Trailer Report will provide data-driven insights into equipment trends and seasonality.
• REPOWR is helping brokers access nationwide trailer pools to never say “no” because of capacity.
  
  

Watch Matt’s full conversation with FreightWaves’ Loaded & Rolling below and see how REPOWR is redefining trailer utilization for the modern freight network.

Transcript from Loaded & Rolling

Switching to the folks at REPOWR. Now, we're going to be bringing on our next guest, Matt Harb. He is the vice president of product and operations at REPOWR. And uh talking trailers, love me some trailers. First though, tell us a little about yourself. We're going to dive into one of my favorite subjects, equipment. Yeah, I loved your analogy there. I thought that was awesome. Um so, my name is Matt Harb. I'm a VP of product at REPOWR. I've been here about eight months. Uh but have known the guys, uh the co-founders there for for quite a while. and uh have been in the logistics and kind of final mile moving space uh my whole career outside of a stint in marketplaces. So, REPOWR was the perfect immersion of both of those things, marketplaces and and logistics.

So, tell us how it works for folks who aren't as familiar kind of how does what's the nitty-gritty on that? Yeah, so REPOWR is a universal trailer network. So, we work with 50 plus we call them suppliers but large carriers who own their assets and they can list trailers all over the country where They have high idle trailers where they need repositioning. And then we solve the need for them of not paying, you know, hundreds of thousand dollars a year to drag empties from Jacksonville to Denver or wherever you need to. Um, and not have idle trailers sitting. 30% of trailers are sitting idle at any given time. And then for carriers, we provide flexible reservations for them where they can come grab a trailer where they need it. Uh, it's a daily rate. They can put up their own COI. They can purchase um our protection as well. And then they've got that trailer, it's theirs uh until they drop it off at the location. Uh so they get flexibility that they need. The suppliers turn really a cost into profit.

That was one of my favorite things when I had a market. The challenge was I would have collections of trailers where they don't need to be. So let's say Jacksonville, Florida. I need them in Atlanta. Y. So what we used to do before REPOWR was you'd have to get with a brokerage arm. They didn't interchange try to double dip. They pick it up. They eventually get it there. There's no visibility. You trust they don't tear it up. And so now this provides an easier way kind of like a global interchange and a e a better visibility to help reposition assets without just empty miles.

That's exactly it. So eliminate those empty miles. And you know we have just or are launching our capacity planning tool that's giving you know trailer managers for a long time they're not getting a ton of product built for them right they're not always on the highest up. assets are oftentimes forgotten about, but I loved your analogy about cigarettes in jail. Um, and you have to have them. And so we've built a tool to give them real time visibility of where their trailers are, where what their balance looks like. So where's their surplus, where's there a shortage, and then actually list those automatically. Um, so that you're getting paid for those to keep your bal your network in balance. Really?.

Oh, so it's kind of like let's say I've got a 100 trailers. I'm in the REPOWR network. It automatically provides visibility. Let's Hey, I just need to move five trailers from Colorado down to Florida. I can then go on this dashboard, stick them up there, and then somebody else can come and move them for me. Yeah, that's it. So, you upload your locations, we have your assets, you connect your telematics, so you have full visibility throughout. and then the missing piece is just, okay, what's your forecast? What are your needs at this specific market?. And when we see that go out of balance, either surplus or shortage, then we'll create listings and we'll route your surpluses to your shortages. We'll keep your balance market it's in balance and now you you know you're getting paid to actually keep your network in balance and you're building your brand so carriers are seeing it uh they're grabbing your trailers. You have full visibility during the reservation flow. Uh the last eight months we've really spent a ton of time on carrier vetting. I'm sure we we've talked about fraud a lot. Um and it's wickedly important that not only do you have insight and visibility into what's happening, but that you know the carriers are vetted. And so we've been working tirelessly to improve the product on that side as well.

Do you see a lot of use cases kind of like dry van or more specialized reefer open deck or even like chassis? Because I can imagine everybody's got trailers and everybody needs to move them somehow. That's it. So, uh we're actually going to be publishing the trailer report, our first version of the trailer report next next month and it's talking a lot about that. Uh so what seasonality does for trailer needs whether it's open deck reefer storage, how the market's kind of moving around, how markets move as it relates to trailers, right?. Trucks get a lot of love, freight gets a lot of love. Uh, in the trailer report, we'll be sending that out next month and it talks about a lot of that same stuff. Is that something where you think looking ahead, trailers are now a form of market intelligence as well?. Because one of the big things I I got to speak on Sunday with Mike Bowen Distl was the difference between 40 foot international containers and 53 foot domestic containers. And apparently there is an entire hustle on the health of an intermoal rail company. based on knowing if these contrailers are going further inland or if they're getting turned into 53 foot at a location and you can predict how well they're doing based on maritime trends because the steamship lines like well I don't need these 40 foots yet they're going to go to Chicago door to door or they say crap I need to turn it around I'm going to transload to a 53 and send it.

Yeah I mean we are going to have a ton of that data and we're you know not in the business of kind of sharing that or selling that but because it's they're not our trailer there are carriers trailers. Um, but we provide that back to them and say, "Hey, here's trailers that you have sitting idle and you could be making some money on. Here's trailers. If you can move some stuff here, then you can make some money on it." Because again, even the best fleets are leaving 10% uh just sitting there. So, when we're looking at that, I the wheels are turning here. And that's what I I really like the fact was I purposely in the past would leave these empty trailers in a market and I'd like hide them. somewhere because I knew some of my customers were bad. And so this report and this intelligence now means that if I got like 20 empty trailers, I'm going to put 10 of them aside, put these things to work and then when I need them, I can take them offline. That's kind of what it opens up towards this.

That's it. And it's flexibility. I mean, that's what the industry needs right now more than anything with the conditions. It's like you can list that, you know, location to location. So keep them in Atlanta, Atlanta to Atlanta for anywhere from 3 days to 90 days. And it's charged by day. So if you need it for a project, in two weeks, put it up for two weeks. If you need it down in Wahhatchee, throw it up in Wahhatchee for a 10day reservation, right?. And it's flexible for both the supplier and the carriers and small fleets and poweronies that are reserving these trailers. The last thing they need is a long-term lease or another subscription service or something that's tying them down long term. They want to stay flexible and versatile, which is really helpful.

I feel like for the Power Only guys as well, there's a really good opportunity because that I was very hesitant because I only give up my trailer. Like let's say I got a rider or Pinsky trailers or you know Waw Bash or whatever, but then it's gone and now I got to find a new trailer. So do you do you see kind of adoption rates is that really helping with the power only?. Because I noticed when we're thinking of changes in the trailer marketplace there's got to be some of these bigger trends that you guys are opening up to help out.

Totally. I mean you know just market data it's like 7% of loads are power only 20% of carriers are running power only right. So there's an obvious gap. where trailers are needed. And so you're exactly right that somebody gets one on their back and they want to keep it. The behavior that we've been able to build with our carriers is, "Hey, grab the trailer here, drop it off here. There's going to be another one there for you." We've actually seen carriers start to build around us, uh, which is pretty cool. They're starting to just purchase and lease trucks and then know they can just come to Re Power for their trailer needs. Be versatile with the type. So it might be reefer during this season, flatbed during this season, drive van during this season.

Do you all partner with maintenance providers as well because whenever I did drop drop networks the challenge was a lot of my drivers would not like inspect them. So then the next driver shows up he's like this is a crappy tire on this trailer who dropped this thing off like is that one of the opportunities for the fleet is that I'm getting more eyes and then I do you guys patch into their existing roadside network or is that one of the opportunities to offer or. Yeah. So that so we can do that and we do do that for some suppliers. Some suppliers say there's just maintenance and pickup. We partner with a couple different roadside uh people. My mechanic is one that give them access to it and then they have access to uh whoever owns the trailer, their mechanic line as well for like the normal stuff.

for brokers having like a nationwide trailer pool. Talk about how that tool works because it felt like back in the day asset light also meant I don't deal with trailers. I don't deal with trailer pools. I can't afford you know. which means you say no to a ton of bits, right?. You you don't I don't have the trailer capacity for that the carriers I know don't have the 3 to one necessary to run that. Uh and so brokers are a big part of our business in a in a growing segment. If if you're a broker and not using REPOWR, you're missing out because you then have access to never say no because of trailers, right?. So if you've got 15 power only guys and one carrier who has 15 trailers, you can now put that 30 trailer project bib together. um and use our trailers, reserve them on our platform, assign them to drivers every single reservation. has an inspection form pre and postrip telematics throughout the process so you can kind of manage reassign to carriers so on and so forth.

and you guys have some really cool AI powered tools. I love the name your AI powered trailer assistant is called Hitch. Yeah, Hitch is going to be launching next month. It's for um our carriers and and people reserving trailers and it's effectively like your little trailer buddy. It knows what trailers you like. It knows what reservations you're on, where you're dropping. uh you tell it a little bit about what you want and it says, "Hey, I've got the perfect trailer for you." uh and then you can just kind of keep on moving with it. And that powered with our capacity planning tool. Um, which is going to again allow, you know, right now our suppliers, if they want to move a trailer or list a trailer, it's it's they're listing that trailer, they might be listing 20, 30 at a time. With capacity planning, they can kind of just turn it on and let it run. And now they're managing locations, not listings. And so you couple that managing location more trailers with hitch helping carriers kind of be smart about which trailer they're getting how to stay in network and and how to find the right trailer for them and we're really really excited about the next 6 eight months brings well that talks about with the API because one of the challenges when I worked for a large nationwide carrier is we would have trailer pools by customer but then we'd have internal trailer pool variances -12 plus 30 so through the API and lets say I'm a large carrier I'm connecting to REPOWR now I can start to say well Crap, I'm in Columbus. -10 plus 20. Does that mean with hits in the AI, I'm starting to open the door to start making, we called them nonrevenue moves, but now they can turn into revenue moves.

Yeah. I mean, you've got fleets spending, you know, six digits a month on repositioning trailers or if not a month, a quarter. Um, and it, you know, it's wild, but that's exactly what capacity planning does is as soon as you get out of balance. so you upload your forecast, you can change them at any point, your min. And the minute it sees you go down, we were at a customer in Minneapolis last week who said, "I want to get as good as it was when I was at UPS where when we get one out of network, I've got something to bring it back." And this tool really allows you to do that without a human having to get involved. Uh and then we're immediately pushing that trailer to our carriers.

Do you see a lot of use cases as well for like private fleets and LTL and other spaces?. Because I can imagine that let's say I'm a UPS or a FedEx. The problem is they do a global inter chains and they would like steal my trailers. Uh, I love Amazon. Thank you for being a sponsor, Amazon. But Global Interchange, so then I'd see a trailer in the middle of nowhere. With REPOWR now, at least I can slowly get made whole again and try to reposition this asset back. Or let's say that I had to use a Schneider trailer instead of my own. Now I can use REPOWR to get it back to the original. So it's a way of also managing carrier relationships if I have a mixed company pool.

That's exactly right. So you've got like your Rainbow Fleet or whatever you're working with. and our tools kind of set it up. We built and launched our projects tool for you to manage exactly that. So, I've got one out of whack. Let's bring it back home. Uh we do a lot of kind of REPOWRs in that effort too of hey I can assign this other carrier to get this back where it needs to go. And then theoretically looking at we got a little bit of time left. Does that open the door for me then to because I'm thinking like point A and point B. I'm using REPOWR but I've messed up. I got the wrong carrier trailer. They need it back. Can I then tender them a load back and just put it on their trailer, use re like have that to where we can turn that into an operational advantage. Yeah. And I'm getting to, you know, put everybody to work versus nonrevenue. What we used to do is empty move a trailer back.

Empty move a trailer, pay somebody to move it. So we take the verification part. You know, our suppliers want to know who is driving every single trailer. And so before anybody comes on the platform, we're they're logging in through Highway. They're verifying persona to make sure they are who they say they are. And then they're getting assigned each time. Um, so that they know who's got that trailer. So, it's not as simple as just like I'll get it back somehow. Uh, but you can assign that driver. Once that gets accepted by the supplier, then they're free to move it back.

Perfect. Well, Matt, thank you so much for your time as well. Folks want to learn more about REPOWR, check you all out. Best way to get more info. Yeah, I mean, contact me, uh, mattrour.com. Our office is is right over. So, if you're at the conference and want to swing by uh the REPOWR office, we'd love to show show you give a demo and and hopefully I can pop on your show sometime soon and and do some live demo. But. we'll do a mastered Oh yeah, we'll do a master class on trailers. I Let's do it.

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