Millions of Americans have grown accustomed to next-day and same-day delivery of their goods. But that level of service might not be sustainable for much longer. In fact, unless action is taken soon, the entire delivery ecosystem of the U.S. could be in trouble.

Supply chains aren’t fully recovered from stresses caused by the pandemic, and the simultaneous shift by consumers to e-commerce shopping. But there's another factor that’s equally crucial: the ongoing trucker shortage. Industry estimates place it at around 78,000 drivers, and the number is predicted to balloon to more than 160,000 by 2031.

The hardships of long-haul truckers — including long days on the road away from families, without proper nourishment or sleep — are well-documented. But in this time of next- and same-day delivery, the experiences of short-haul truckers have been occasionally overlooked. Until we make progress on fixing that problem, we’ll never come close to solving the trucker shortage.

Some might not realize that many short-haul truckers are effectively freelancers, captive to the whims of whoever will give them work. The resulting inconsistency and lack of coordination between carriers mean that drivers are often forced to drive deeply unintuitive routes, wasting hours in traffic that could otherwise be productively spent making deliveries. Imagine if Doordash drivers had no control over which deliveries they accepted — and had to drive halfway across a city for their next pickup.

This freelance lifestyle inevitably takes a toll. Some drivers will go days or weeks worrying about their next paycheck, then spend a month so burdened with work that they barely have time to see their families. Add to that the usual complications of the freelance lifestyle — all the headaches of accounting, maintenance and customer relations — and it starts to become clear why we're having so much trouble retaining truck drivers.

Returning to the Doordash example for a moment: Part of why drivers like using that service is that they can easily find deliveries, and the algorithm ensures that those deliveries are conveniently and strategically located. The driver is able to get in more fares in a given day, without having to drive all over the city looking for potential customers.

The disruptions of services like Doordash seem like ancient history at this point. Yet in all that time, the trucking industry has still to catch up. In many ways, the industry has been running at the same frustratingly slow pace for decades, to the detriment of both customers and drivers. Any bright future for short-haul trucking — especially the kind of last-mile delivery that’s become so essential to the U.S. economy in recent years — is going to have to take full advantage of the possibilities of on-demand freight technology. 

On-demand freight technology can help truckers find jobs more easily, spend more time with their families, improve their working conditions, and get paid more by businesses that urgently need their products transported. It can create consistency and reliability for short-haul drivers in an industry that has been, to this point, disjointed and murky. Customers, meanwhile, through advances in real-time tracking, can get the kind of peace of mind that’s often hard to come by when dealing with traditional, chronically opaque regional carriers.

All of this is doubly important in an economy in which "flexibility" has become the paramount virtue. Data shows that 95% of workers want to set their own hours. This comes at a time when companies across the country are scrambling to adapt to new, flexibility-oriented customer habits, finding and patching together partnerships with disparate regional carriers to meet the demands of the post-pandemic e-commerce era.

On-demand freight technology fits neatly into this paradigm, allowing drivers to work precisely when and where they want, while making life infinitely easier for the companies that need their products delivered. Companies get on-demand access to nearby trucks, making it easier for them to connect with available capacity in their area. This is in stark contrast to the current fragmented marketplace, in which companies are left stringing together the services of multiple independently owned short-haul carriers.

The result is that the trucker has more consistent and reliable work; the shipper can more easily find drivers to move its goods, and the end-consumer gets its products with the speed it has come to expect over the last few years.

Freight marketplaces provide on-demand access to nearby trucks, making it easier for customers and truckers alike to connect with available capacity in their area. On-demand support of this kind isn’t going to fix the trucker shortage overnight, but it’s a positive step in the right direction toward uplifting truckers.

Aaron Peck is the founder and chief executive officer of Mothership, a local freight marketplace.