For Paul Kazan, who founded Target Interstate Systems Inc. in the Bronx, NY, more than 30 years ago, there is nothing like picking up the phone and talking to a customer or a truck driver.

“I like the personal touch.  With a text or an email they don’t hear the tone of your voice and you don’t know exactly how you come off,” he said.

Luckily for Kazan, he said the company has enough customers that still like communicating the old-fashioned way.  However, he readily admits that his son Evan Kazan is moving the company toward a more web-based existence where communicating with shippers, receivers and truckers is more efficient and more in tune with how the next generation wants to do business.  

The elder Kazan said the company is currently in the testing phase of a trace and track system which will allow the company to track the exact location of a shipment in real time.  

“The truck driver loads an app on to their smart phone and we can track their location,” he said.

Currently Target is discussing the application with their drivers and are working on an incentive program to encourage use.  

Kazan understands that some drivers have an issue with letting the truck broker know exactly where they are, but he said it makes perfect business.  He added that the application is like “Snap Chat” as it gives the instant location but then does not remember that information so there is no permanent record of it.  “I’ve heard some drivers are afraid the DOT [Department of Transportation] could get the information.”

Kazan said only drivers not following the hours of service regulations or those that aren’t where they are supposed to be should have an issue with the use of this new technology.  For a truck broker, he said it allows for 100 percent certainty of where a load is at all times.  This is invaluable information that the truck broker, as well as the shipper and the receiver, want to know.  Where is the load and when is it going to be delivered are probably the two most common and important questions in the produce transportation world.

And they always have been since Kazan launched his company in 1981.  He came up through the truck broker ranks working with others before starting his own company.  He credits a man who went by the name “Philly B” for pioneering destination truck brokers.  In those days, most truck brokers were at the point of origination.  “He changed the business,” Kazan said.

With the advent of destination brokers, truck drivers wanted to be paid as soon as they reached that destination and both shippers and receivers liked having a person on site that could handle any issues that arose.  While destination brokers are common today, Kazan said in the 1980s and even into the ‘90s, they were fairly rare.

With his Bronx location, he has specialized in loads from California to the Northeast corridor running from New York to Boston.  While Target handles destinations from Western Pennsylvania to upstate New York, and from many different points of origin, he said the California-Northeast run makes up the core of the company’s business.

He said the biggest change for Target over the years has been the addition of dry freight business.  In the beginning it took a few dry freight loads as backhauls to help position trucks properly.  But over time that business has grown and has become part of the operation, though it is handled by a different Target Interstate division.

Both Paul and Evan Kazan continue to strengthen the company’s business and are attempting to build the largest network of owner-operators in the country.  “That’s my goal,” Kazan said.

Evan Kazan said the company has created a data base of these truckers complete with their preferred routes and commodities.  Consequently, when Target gets a load it can send out an email blast specifically to truckers who have a preference for that particular type of load and location.  

He said this is a very efficient way to manage the pool of truckers and match them with available loads.  It is another example of how Target Interstate is using technology to help both its freight customers and its truckers.  

After all, Paul Kazan said both are represented by Target Interstate, which must take into account all involved in the hauling transaction from the shipper through the trucker to the receiver.