Routing guide
A routing guide is the shipper's ranked list of carriers for each lane, built from the last bid award. When a load is ready, the TMS tenders it to the first carrier on the list, then the second if the first declines, and so on until someone accepts or the load falls to spot.
A routing guide is the operating output of a bid: for every lane, an ordered list of who gets offered the freight and at what rate. The primary carrier sits first, one or more backup carriers follow, and the sequence ends in the spot market. The guide lives in the shipper's TMS and drives tender acceptance reporting: how often the first carrier said yes, how far down the list loads fell, and what that depth cost.
On Mexico lanes the guide often has to encode more than a carrier and a rate: which crossing, whether the move is through-trailer or transfer, and which side of the border each carrier actually covers.
What this means when you move freight
Routing guide depth is the number that matters. A guide where loads regularly fall past the second or third carrier is usually a guide whose rates have drifted below market, and the shipper is paying spot rates while reporting contract rates. Brokers who hold a backup position should track how often tenders reach them and at what rate the primary is failing; that is the signal to propose a rerate or a mini-bid. Shippers should compare each lane's contracted rate against the current market rate quarterly, not annually, because cross-border lanes can reprice faster than domestic ones.
Put the vocabulary to work
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