Routing Guide Compliance

Routing guide compliance measures the gap between your freight procurement plan and what actually happens when loads need to move. If your routing guide says Carrier A is primary on a lane at $2,500, compliance tells you how often Carrier A actually accepts and moves that freight at that rate. High compliance means your contracted rates and carrier assignments are holding. Low compliance means your plan is breaking down – and you're likely spending more on backup carriers or spot freight to fill the gaps.

Compliance is typically expressed as a percentage: a shipper with 85% routing guide compliance is moving 85 out of every 100 loads with the primary carrier at the contracted rate. The remaining 15% cascade to secondary carriers (usually at higher rates) or fall to the spot market. Industry averages vary by market cycle, but most shippers target primary carrier acceptance rates above 80%. Below that threshold, the cost leakage from waterfall tendering – each carrier rejection pushing the load to a more expensive option – starts to meaningfully erode the savings the RFP was supposed to deliver.

Low compliance on specific lanes is a signal, not just a problem. It usually means one of three things: the contracted rate is below market and the carrier can earn more elsewhere, the lane has become operationally unattractive (difficult pickup/delivery, frequent detention), or the carrier overcommitted during the RFP. Understanding which cause is driving the rejection helps you choose the right response – renegotiating the rate, addressing operational friction, or reassigning the lane to a different carrier via a mini-bid.

Tracking compliance at the lane level – not just as a network-wide average – is what makes the metric actionable. A 90% overall compliance rate can mask a handful of high-volume lanes running at 50%, which is where most of the cost leakage concentrates.