Routing Guide
A shipper's ranked list of contracted carriers for each lane — the order in which tenders are offered, at what rates, before freight falls to backups or the spot market.
How it works — and why it matters
When a load ships, the shipper's TMS tenders it to the lane's primary carrier at the contracted rate; if the primary declines or the tender expires, it cascades to the next carrier in the guide, and eventually to brokers or the spot market. Tender acceptance rates and routing-guide depth are watched closely on both sides — a guide that regularly cascades past its primaries costs the shipper money and signals mispriced lanes.
For carriers, routing-guide position is the reward for service performance: scorecards built on on-time delivery, EDI 214 timeliness, and tender responsiveness decide who keeps the primary slot at bid time. Fast, automated tender processing (EDI 204 in, 990 back) protects the acceptance metrics that keep contracted freight flowing.