How does a truck availability API work? | A: A truck availability API queries real-time signals from multiple data sources — GPS location, FASTag toll crossings, trip completion events, and historical movement patterns — to determine which trucks are currently available (unloaded and moving) on a specific origin-destination lane. It returns a list of trucks with current location, estimated time to origin, vehicle type, and transporter details. | Q: What data sources power a truck availability API? | A: Three primary data sources: (1) FASTag data — tells you which trucks have recently crossed tolls on the relevant highway, confirming they are active on the lane; (2) GPS telemetry — real-time location of instrumented vehicles; (3) Trip completion events — when a truck's previous trip is marked delivered, it becomes available for the next booking. Intugine aggregates all three across 25 lakh+ vehicles. | Q: What is the difference between static and real-time truck availability data? | A: Static availability data uses historical patterns to predict which trucks are typically available on a lane at a given time. Real-time availability uses live GPS and FASTag signals to confirm trucks that are actually on the move right now. Real-time is 3–5x more accurate for same-day bookings; historical is useful for advance planning and rate benchmarking. | Q: What is the supply-demand imbalance index in truck availability? | A: The supply-demand imbalance index measures the ratio of available truck capacity to posted load requirements on a specific lane at a specific time. An index above 1 means more trucks than loads (buyer's market — rates drop). Below 1 means more loads than trucks (seller's market — rates rise). Freight platforms use this index to set dynamic pricing and predict rate movements 24–48 hours ahead. | Q: How do freight marketplaces use truck availability APIs to reduce empty runs? | A: When a truck completes a delivery, a trip completion event triggers an availability query for backload opportunities on the return lane. The platform instantly matches the now-available truck with pending load requirements going in the opposite direction — without any action from the driver or transporter. This automated backload matching is the core mechanism for reducing empty runs in digital freight platforms. | Q: What are the API rate limits and latency for Intugine's truck availability API? | A: Intugine's truck availability API typically returns results in under 200ms for lane-based queries. Rate limits depend on plan tier — standard plans support 100 requests/minute; enterprise plans support 1,000+ requests/minute with dedicated infrastructure. Bulk lane scanning (querying availability across 50+ lanes simultaneously) is supported via the batch endpoint. +
