SMC³: Investing a Lifetime of Knowledge to Propel the Transportation Industry

Optimize LTL freight transportation with SMC³

The Knowledge Hub for Less Than Truckload

SMC³ is the leading less than truckload (LTL) and truckload data and solutions provider, optimizing freight transportation across the supply chain. More than 5,000 North American shippers, carriers, logistics service providers (LSPs) and freight-payment companies rely on SMC³’s sophisticated LTL base rates, content, and expert LTL and truckload bidding and planning tools to make the best business decisions, achieve higher return on their transportation investment, and meet the dynamic demands of the market.

Proven Technical Expertise

With more than 90 years of history supporting the complex transportation niche, SMC³ is revered for its rich expertise, operational excellence and neutrality across the supply chain. The company’s proven ability to evolve with changes in technology allows SMC³ to meet the increasingly sophisticated customer demands of frictionless integration and interoperability. Today, through hosted technology solutions, SMC³ supports the entire supply chain with industry-leading speed, reliability.

Revered for Education Across the Supply Chain

Our commitment to help optimize LTL freight transportation and our long-standing reputation for excellence extends to thought leadership well beyond LTL. Through hosted conferences and educational events across North America, SMC³ brings together the most respected companies in supply chain management and innovation for extensive networking, alliance-building and knowledge-sharing.

SMC³. Investing a lifetime to help optimize LTL freight transportation.

SMC³ Invites You to take a Journey through Time

1930s

In trucking’s early days, carriers operated in free-for-all mode. There were no restrictions, and unscrupulous carriers sullied the image of trucking as a dependable transportation mode. But in 1935, the federal government regulated trucking with one decisive law. In early 1936, a group of carriers convened in Florida to discuss the new law’s rate-publishing requirements. The carriers didn’t want to deal with the administrative nightmare of establishing rates and publishing tariffs, so the group created an organization to compile and publish tariffs. The Southern Motor Carriers Rate Conference would become one of 10 regional rate bureaus.

1940s

With the passage of the Reed-Bulwinkle Act in 1948, Congress approved collective ratemaking. Rate bureaus had been functioning as carrier consultants before the new law, but SMCRC and other organizations could now work more closely with carriers while being guarded from antitrust lawsuits. SMCRC existed to help motor carriers decipher and navigate the relatively new regulatory world. Carriers operating in the Southeast joined the organization, which functioned under antitrust immunity, to develop regional rates in monthly meetings; SMC³, which remains one of the only former rate bureaus still in existence, was originally responsible for a nine-state territory spanning from Florida, north to Virginia and west to Mississippi.

1950s, 60s & 70s

For about half a century, the primary role of the bureau was to compile, print and publish volumes of tariffs and price lists for hundreds of carrier members in the LTL segment. This involved collecting industry data from participating carriers in the Southeast and shifting through the resulting reams of rate information. Carrier members would then vote on periodic changes to existing transportation rates and establish new rates. This collective ratemaking served a purpose; trucking was seen as the key to boosting the nation’s economy, and to accomplish that, transportation rates needed to be fair and reliable. By 1979, SMCRC counted 1,250 motor carrier representatives as members.

1980s – 1990s

President Carter’s Motor Carrier Regulatory Reform and Modernization Act led to a change in SMCRC’s organizational structure. Collective ratemaking was still legal, but was constantly scrutinized. One challenge to SMC³’s way of doing business rose all the way to the Supreme Court, where in 1984, the justices ruled in favor of the organization. After re-naming itself SMC, the organization merged with the Louisville-based Central and Southern Motor Freight Association in 1989. The ‘80s and ‘90s brought technological evolutions; after the release of CzarLite in 1987, SMC unveiled RateWare in 1996. SMC also doubled-down on its educational goals, creating the Jump Start and Connections conferences in the mid ‘90s.

Early 2000s

In 2007, regulators abolished the antitrust laws that formed the backbone of the rate bureaus, completely deregulating the industry. Later that year, SMC officially changed its name to SMC³, underlining the three pillars of data, technology and education. In 2008, SMC³ updated its foundational products for a new generation, producing the web-based programs RateWare XL and CarrierConnect XL. While Connections and Jump Start continued to grow, in 2011, SMC³’s leadership increased the company’s educational outreach, launching The Academy, which provides the industry collaborative learning classes. In 2011, SMC³ formed the Educational Advisory Committee to ensure conference and Academy topics were forward-thinking and thoroughly addressed the industry’s needs.

LEARN ABOUT SMC³’s HISTORY OF INDUSTRY EXCELLENCE

SMC³ History of Industry Excellence from SMC³ on Vimeo

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