The life of a drayage trucker — hauling containers for short distances to and from the port — isn’t an easy one.

During peak periods of activity at major ports, congestion is endemic. Even with an appointment system in place, drayage haulers can wait up to seven hours at the terminal waiting to pick up a load. Inefficiencies abound, and there’s a frustrating disconnect among marine terminals, brokers, warehouses and carriers. In most cases, the driver ends up able to haul just one container per day. As a result, many are just scraping by. It’s no wonder that the industry is suffering a shortfall of at least 50,000 drivers. Technology can help, however. On this episode, we speak with Lidia Yan, chief executive officer and co-founder of Next Trucking, provider of a digital platform for matching drivers with available loads. It could be a solution to long wait times, wasted capacity and low paychecks. Hosted by Bob Bowman, managing editor of SupplyChainBrain.

Look for a new episode of the podcast, which can be downloaded or streamed, every Friday on the SupplyChainBrain website and iTunes.

Show notes:

A blog post about the driver shortage.