Planning Tariffs can be used to avoid situations where trip cost saving comparison uses an unrealistically low cost as the basis for comparison. Some shippers will allocate the volume on a lane between several common carriers, ignoring any freight that may be assigned to the private/dedicated fleet. There will be cases where a carrier without any allocation has a lower cost than any of the common carriers with allocated percentages. While a carrier may offer a lower rate, if the carrier is not reliable (for example, unacceptable tender acceptance ratio), shippers will be unlikely to commit to using the carrier on a regular basis. Using Planning Tariffs, the lower costs associated with the unreliable carrier will not be considered, providing a better chance for trips to be built.
Planning Tariffs can also be used to standardize the anticipated costs for a lane. For example, Planning Tariffs could be updated with a rolling 30 day average cost for each lane, with exceptions used for selected lanes or seasonal variations.
The Transportation Planner CMove strategy will optionally consider Planning Tariffs when validating minimum cost savings for a trip. When the CMove parameter "CostImprovementIsRequired" is True, the Use Planning Tariffs for Trip Minimum Cost Savings flag in the TM Global Settings will control whether Execution Tariffs or Planning Tariffs will be used to compute the individual load costs that are used when determining if the trip cost has achieved the savings required by the "MinCostSavingsRequired" CMove parameter. When True, Planning Tariffs will be used if available; when False, Execution Tariffs will be used exclusively.
If routing using Planning Tariffs fails, trade-off costs for the load will be based on the lowest cost qualifying Execution Tariff. If routing using Planning Tariffs fails for some but not all loads, the cost used for the minimum trip cost savings comparison will be based on a combination of Planning Tariffs and Execution Tariffs. If routing using Planning Tariffs fails for all loads, trip cost comparison will be made exclusively using Execution Tariffs.
If there is a committed carrier or tractor equipment type for a load at shipment leg and/or load level or a committed domicile at load level, the trip cost savings calculation will use the costs associated with the Execution Tariffs for that load even if the TM Global Settings flag states that Planning Tariffs should be used. For other loads on the proposed trip without carrier, tractor equipment type or domicile commitments, Planning Tariff cost will be used, if available.