Allocating freight haulage jobs

A computer readable medium for allocating freight haulage jobs, the computer-readable medium comprising computer-readable instructions for causing a computer to:

• receive from one or more users respective capacity attributes, including position information, route information and excess capacity information specifying available freight-hauling capacity, for each mobile carrier entity in a set of freight-hauling mobile carrier entities, wherein the received excess capacity information includes amount of available capacity and mode of transport;
• compute a projection of available carrier capacity based upon the received mobile carrier capacity attributes;
• and
• identify one or more freight haulage job candidates from the set of mobile carrier entities based upon the computed projection of available carrier capacity and shipping attributes for each of a set of freight haulage jobs, wherein the computer-readable instructions cause the computer to identify the one or more freight haulage job candidates based at least in part upon a comparison of the received excess capacity information and an amount of needed capacity and mode of transport specified for each of the freight haulage jobs.

A system, comprising:

• a freight haulage job manager operable to perform operations comprising
• receiving from a first entity a respective set of capacity attributes for each of one or more freight-hauling mobile carrier entities on route to respective destinations for respective current freight haulage jobs, wherein each of the transmitted sets of capacity attributes comprises position information, route information and excess capacity information specifying current available freight-hauling capacity of the respective mobile carrier entity, wherein the received excess capacity information includes amount of available capacity and mode of transport,
• computing a projection of future available carrier capacity based upon the received mobile carrier capacity attributes,
• receiving from a second entity a respective specification for each of one or more freight haulage jobs,
• determining ones of the mobile carrier entities that match respective ones of the freight haulage jobs based upon the computed projection of future available carrier capacity and the specifications of the freight haulage jobs, wherein the determining comprises identifying the matching ones of the mobile carrier entities based at least in part upon a comparison of the received excess capacity information and an amount of needed capacity and mode of transport specified for each of the freight haulage jobs, and
• transmitting to the second entity a notification of one or more of the matching mobile carrier entities;
• and
• one or more portable devices each of which is carried by a respective one of the mobile carrier entities and comprises
• a portable housing incorporating a display screen and one or more control buttons,
• a memory in the housing;
• a wireless transceiver in the housing,
• a positioner in the housing and operable to compute position information,
• a scanner in the housing and operable to direct a light beam at a symbol and to recover information embedded in the symbol based upon detected reflections from the symbol, and
• a controller in the housing and coupled to the memory, the wireless transceiver, the positioner, and the scanner and operable to obtain from the scanner capacity attributes, including position information, route information and excess capacity information, for the respective mobile carrier entity and to control wireless transmission of the capacity attributes through the wireless transceiver in accordance with a mobile wireless communication protocol.