Benchmark Analytics FAQs

We benchmark customers' rates as all in compared to an all in benchmark.  This levels the effects of a shipper who pays $1.00 per mile in fuel vs one who pays $0.50 per mile.   When we benchmark a customer using only linehaul, we basically take the all in cost of the benchmark and back out the customer’s specific  fuel so your linehaul is compared to a linehaul.  

This all assumes that if a Shipper pays $1.00 per mile in fuel and another pays $0.50 per mile, all other things being equal, these two shippers should have the same total cost.  

Contact dataops@dat.com. They can assist mapping your fields to a field that we have in our user interface.  Common fields we could map your data to are the Business Unit, Customer, Origin Location or Destination location

Yes, we do include fuel in this calculation to account for differing fuel surcharge programs. This puts all shippers on a level playing field as it relates to fuel. In other words, a shipper who pays one dollar per mile in fuel will get compared fairly to a shipper who pays $.40 per mile in fuel. 

Please double check the filters that you've applied. Check under preferences, then settings, then load validity, and see if there are shipments that perhaps we have flagged as invalid. You can also check the trip type selection to see if some of your loads are coded as dedicated for other.  Do you still have questions please reach out to  benchmarkcs@dat.com

Delta cost divided by benchmark cost

Where delta cost is the difference between your cost and our benchmark cost

We are cost equals line haul plus fuel

The benchmark rate is a modeled rate using advanced machine, learning and artificial intelligence that account for specific freight characteristics of your load, such as expedited, carrier, type, or rate type.  This modeled rate primarily uses origin cost plus destinations cost plus a distance factor. 

Most visuals that categorize shipments as spot utilize the DAT IQ algorithm. This approach is used to levelize any variances in how shippers classify their lane rates. While it is not a perfect alignment to individual shipper classifications, it does provide a standard comparison that allows for irregular rates to be identified and compared to each other. The DAT IQ spot classification is any shipment that the linehaul lane rate has been used less than 4 days in all of your data. All data is recategorized every time new data is submitted.

RateView provides a lane average of actual paid shipments volume on a lane. It does not take into account other attributes, like, hazmat and expedited.

Benchmark Analytics rates provide a modeled rate of actual paid shipments. The ML model is a function of all contributed outbound volume, plus contributed inbound volume, and takes into account attributes like hazmat and expedited.

Many of our customers are allocating 10s, if not 100s, of millions of dollars in freight spend on hundreds or thousands of lanes and desire more than one benchmark rate to assist in their negotiations and analytics. BA is currently Shipper-specific, while RV does have the broker buy spot view as well.

The 2016 index is a full year model created using 2016 data.  The model is how old static and compared to rates overtime to measure change in rates overtime.  This change in rates controls for distance, direction (head haul back haul), fuel and volume.  The year-over-year difference  calculation is used to calculate, inflation, overtime.

To add a user:

1. Go to account.dat.com and log in.
2. Select User Management from the left menu.
3. Click CREATE NEW USER in the upper right corner.
4. Complete the new user details.
5. Finally, click CREATE USER when finished.

To remove a user:

1. Go to account.dat.com and select User Management.
2. Next to the user you want to remove, click the three vertical dots and choose Delete User.