Wikipedia
DAT Solutions, (or DAT) originally Dial-a-Truck, (also formerly named DAT Services and TransCore DAT) is an electronic freight posting service ("load board") and provider of transportation information serving North America. It was established in 1978.
Before the service, truck drivers seeking loads left handwritten notes on a bulletin board at the Jubitz Truck Stop in Portland, Oregon, U.S. for shippers and freight brokers seeking truckers to move their freight. Jubitz began posting the loads on a monitor at the truck stop and charging drivers a fee for the phone number of the company wanting to move freight. By 2001, there were 1,200 load board monitors in the United States powered by DAT. Subscribers access the DAT Network’s load and truck information via fax, voice, software, mobile, web, or server to server integration, as well as load board monitors at truck stops.
On February 3, 2001, TransCore purchased DAT. TransCore was acquired by Roper Technologies (NYSE: ROP) in 2004. In February 2014, DAT officially changed its name to DAT Solutions. Both TransCore and DAT Solutions are currently wholly owned subsidiaries of Roper Technologies.
The underlying DAT Network is the largest exchange for spot market freight, hosting almost 100 million freight loads and trucks per year, as of 2015. The network consists of several load board subscription services, which include DAT Power, DAT 3sixty Express for small to midsize carriers, freight brokers and shippers, and TruckersEdge for Owner Operators.
DAT also provides the industry's only real-time truckload freight rate service, DAT RateView, based on $28 billion of transactions annually from actual "broker-buy" rates (what freight brokers pay carriers) and shipper-to-carrier contract rates. RateView provides complex lane and pricing analyses that can be used to make routing decisions.
The company also offers several other products designed for carriers, freight brokers, shippers and owner operators, including: carrier monitoring services, transportation management software, fleet compliance services, fleet tracking systems, and fuel cards, among others.