How Laneway works for carriers, shippers, and logistics providers.
The ocean freight base rate bundles two things together: the cost of the service and the cost of the space. The industry unbundled fuel with the BAF decades ago.Laneway unbundles space — giving carriers a new tool to price allocation separately, improve utilization, and turn cancellations into cargo.
Laneway reduces your fall-down from an average of 30-35% to 5-10%, and improves your utilization 5-7%. Today, the cost of vessel space is invisible — buried inside the contract rate alongside the cost of the service itself. There's no way for shippers to separately price, reserve, or trade the space component. The result is 30-35% booking fall-down (up to 90% in volatile periods), because cancelling a booking costs nothing and the space has no standalone value.
Laneway creates the AEU — an Allocation Equivalent Unit — a tradable loading guarantee that gives space its own price. Shippers pay to reserve specific slots. If their plans change, they resell the reservation to another shipper instead of cancelling. The slot stays filled. You get better utilization, earlier demand visibility, and a new revenue stream — without changing your existing contract structure.
An AEU (Allocation Equivalent Unit) is the unbundled space component of a container shipment — a tradeable loading guarantee for a specific service, week, and trade lane. Think of it the way the industry thinks about the BAF: fuel costs used to be invisible inside the base rate, until the industry pulled them out and priced them separately. The AEU does the same thing for space.
The shipper pays a fee to confirm their slot. If they don't use it, they forfeit the fee. If the carrier rolls the cargo, the carrier pays a penalty. And critically, AEUs are tradeable — if a shipper's plans change, the reservation moves to someone who needs it, rather than becoming a cancellation.
AEUs live alongside your existing contracts, not inside them. A shipper must already have a contract with you to purchase an AEU on your services. Laneway reinforces carrier-shipper relationships — it aligns incentives through a separate, transparent price for the space component on top of the contract you've already negotiated. Your terms, and commercial relationships stay exactly as they are.
Nothing changes about how shippers book with you. A shipper purchases an AEU through Laneway, then attaches the AEU code to your existing contract booking process. Your system recognizes the code and attaches the loading guarantee. The booking itself flows through your existing processes — Laneway just adds a reservation layer on top.
A cancellation fee gives you revenue when a shipper bails, but the slot stays empty. A tradeable reservation gives you revenue upfront and keeps the slot filled — because the shipper who can't use the space resells it to one who can.
Tiered cancellation fees also create a perverse incentive: shippers book everything they might need, hold phantom bookings as long as possible, then dump them at the cheapest cancellation tier. This batches cancellations at fee thresholds and gives you less time to fill slots — actually making fall-down timing worse than it is today.
Tradability flips the incentive. Instead of waiting to cancel, the shipper is motivated to resell as soon as they know they won't use the space — because there's a market for it. The space transfers to someone who needs it, often weeks before sailing.
You could build a cancellation fee model internally — but as noted above, that doesn't solve utilization. To solve utilization, reservations need to be tradable. For trading to work, shippers need to bid on available space. And here's the structural issue: shippers won't bid honestly if the carrier can see their bid prices and use that information in next season's contract negotiations.
A neutral utility solves this. Laneway shows you aggregate demand signals — which sailings are oversubscribed, where there's slack, how far in advance shippers commit — but individual bid prices between shippers stay private. This isn't a trust issue; it's a market design requirement. The same logic applies in reverse — carriers wouldn't want shippers running the marketplace either.
You see everything you need for planning: which sailings have strong advance demand, which have slack, reservation volumes by lane and timeframe, and how far in advance shippers are committing. What you don't see is individual bid prices when one shipper resells to another. That information separation is what makes the secondary market work.
You control the initial AEU price and the supply of available reservations. If space becomes scarce, you raise primary AEU prices accordingly. Laneway doesn't set rates — you do. On the secondary market (shipper-to-shipper resales), prices are set by supply and demand, but the carrier always controls the tap.
This is unlikely, for several structural reasons. First, you control the supply and the primary price. If demand is surging on a lane, you raise primary AEU prices to capture that scarcity value directly. Shippers can't front-run you because you control the tap.
Second, the speculator takes real downside risk. They're betting on a capacity crunch that may not materialize. If the market softens — blank sailings get reinstated, demand weakens, new capacity enters — they're stuck with reservations nobody needs. There's no offsetting hedge. The risk is binary and operational.
Third, AEUs require an existing carrier contract. Every buyer is an actual market participant with cargo operations — not a pure financial speculator. The universe of potential flippers is inherently small and operationally constrained.
And even in the scenario where an AEU does appreciate — a genuine capacity crunch — the space ends up allocated to whoever values it most, which maximizes utilization. That's the outcome you want. The alternative, where a shipper cancels and the slot goes empty during peak, is worse for everyone.
No. Laneway sits on top of your existing commercial relationships, not between them. Shippers still negotiate contracts directly with you. Booking with AEUs require an existing contract, and is done through your existing booking processes. Think of Laneway as a tool your customers use to manage their allocation more effectively, which in turn gives you better utilization and earlier demand signals.
Guaranteed loading products are reactive — they charge a premium to secure space 2-3 weeks before sailing when availability is already tight. They don't unbundle space from the base rate; they add a surcharge on top of it. And they don't address fall-down or improve demand visibility.
AEUs are structurally different. They give space its own price 8-12 weeks out, giving you much earlier demand signals. And because AEUs are tradeable, when a shipper's plans change, the reservation converts into cargo for someone else rather than becoming a cancellation. Guaranteed loading products collect a premium; AEUs collect a premium and solve utilization.
The big picture is unbundling space across your network — but we start small. In 2026, sell AEUs as a contract add-on for your highest-volume services. A typical pilot focuses on a set of services where fall-down is most visible, often export routes. The goal is straightforward: demonstrate that when space has its own price, utilization improves and fall-down drops on the selected lanes — with minimal disruption to your current operations.
Laneway earns a commission on AEU reservations. During the pilot phase, we waive SaaS fees entirely — you only pay when the system is delivering value. The real carrier revenue story is the utilization improvement: moving from ~86% to ~91% utilization represents significant revenue on every sailing.
No. The AEU price simply adjusts to reflect market conditions — when space is plentiful, AEUs cost less, and when space is tight, AEUs cost more. Your service contracts always stay intact.
Forecasts are wrong in every cycle — tight or soft. Shippers over-commit when they're nervous about space and under-commit when rates drop. The result is the same: bookings that don't show up.
Today, securing space is a black box — buried inside your contract rate alongside the cost of the service. You're paying for space, but you can't see it, reserve it separately, or offload it when your plans change.Laneway unbundles space from the base rate, giving you a way to price, reserve, and trade allocation directly.
Lost revenue due to product availability. You cut purchase orders 8+ weeks before sailing but don't know if your cargo will actually load until 2 weeks before. During that 6+ week gap, bookings get rolled, space disappears, and you're left scrambling for alternatives that cost 30-50% of product margin.
Laneway fixes this by unbundling space through the Allocation Equivalent Unit (AEU) — giving space a separate price, a guarantee, and a market. You reserve confirmed capacity weeks in advance, with financial commitments on both sides.
An AEU (Allocation Equivalent Unit) is the unbundled space component of a container shipment — a tradable loading guarantee for a specific service, week, and trade lane. The industry did this with fuel decades ago: the BAF pulled fuel costs out of the base rate so they could be priced transparently. The AEU does the same thing for space.
You pay a fee to confirm your slot. If your plans change, you can resell the reservation to another shipper on the same carrier network rather than simply forfeiting it. If the carrier rolls your cargo, the carrier pays a penalty. Allocation is finally manageable.
Yes. AEUs live alongside your existing carrier contracts, not in place of them. You can only book using AEUs with carriers you already have a commercial relationship with, on lanes covered by your agreement. Laneway doesn't replace your contracts — it unbundles the space component so you can manage it separately.
A normal booking is more of a notification of intention — neither side has a financial stake in whether that slot actually gets used. The carrier can roll it, you can cancel it, with limited consequences either way.
An AEU unbundles the space and gives it a price. You buy the allocation you need and attach the AEU during your standard booking process to ensure your space, and the carrier faces a penalty if they don't honor it.
You forecast your demand, purchase AEUs through Laneway by service and week, and if your plans change, you can buy or sell AEUs on the market. When you're ready to book, you attach the AEU code to your existing contract booking process. The carrier recognizes the code and your space is guaranteed.
You have two options. You can let the reservation expire and forfeit the fee (the cost of certainty). Or you can resell the AEU to another shipper on the same carrier's network through Laneway's marketplace. Reselling lets you recover some or all of your cost, rather than losing the entire fee. The sooner you list it, the larger the pool of potential buyers — so acting early generally works in your favor.
The carrier pays a penalty — typically a multiple of the reservation cost.
Yes, if you have a contract with the same carrier on that lane. When another shipper's plans change and they list an AEU for resale, you can bid on it. This is especially valuable during tight capacity periods — instead of competing for leftover space, you're buying a confirmed reservation from someone who no longer needs it.
No. Laneway is a year-round solution. The AEU price simply adjusts to reflect market conditions — when space is plentiful, AEUs cost less, and when space is tight, AEUs cost more — which reflects what you are actually paying for. Your service contract stays intact either way.
What changes is you have a confirmed loading guarantee and the ability to resell if your plans shift, instead of hoping your booking holds.
AEU pricing varies by lane, sailing date, and how far in advance you're booking. Early reservations may cost less; prices can increase as the sailing date approaches and space becomes scarcer.
When space is unbundled and separately priced, you can manage it like any other input cost. You know your cargo will move on the service you planned for, which means you can reduce safety stock, avoid air freight premiums, maintain product availability, and protect revenue from late arrivals. For most shippers, the cost of a single rolled booking — in lost sales, expediting fees, or customer penalties — far exceeds the cost of AEU reservations across an entire quarter.
No. Laneway operates as a neutral utility specifically to protect this information. Carriers see aggregate demand signals — which sailings are popular, where there's slack — but they never see individual bid prices between shippers. This separation is a core design principle: it ensures shippers can trade honestly without worrying that their pricing data will influence future contract negotiations.
If the carrier ran the resale marketplace, your bid prices would flow directly to the party that sets your contract rates next season. No shipper would bid honestly in that environment — and without honest bidding, the secondary market doesn't function. Laneway's independence is what makes the market work. The same logic applies in reverse: a shipper-run marketplace would face the same trust problem from the carrier side.
Laneway is onboarding carriers and shippers for initial pilots. If you have existing ocean freight contracts and want to explore what it looks like when the space component of your base rate is separately priced and tradeable, reach out. We'll walk you through how AEUs work on your specific lanes and help you build a business case tailored to your operations.
We're actively building our carrier network. Availability depends on which carriers have integrated with the platform. Contact us for the latest on carrier participation and which trade lanes are currently supported.
The ocean freight base rate today bundles the cost of the service and the cost of the space together. When space has no separate price, nobody manages it — which is why 30-35% of bookings fall down and your ops team spends its time on rework.Laneway unbundles space from the base rate. Whether you hold the carrier contract yourself (Named Account / NVOCC) or manage ocean freight on behalf of shippers who hold their own contracts (OCM), Laneway gives you a tool to buy, sell, and manage allocation.
An AEU (Allocation Equivalent Unit) is the unbundled space component of a container shipment — a tradable loading guarantee for a specific service, week, and trade lane. The industry pulled fuel costs out of the base rate decades ago with the BAF. The AEU does the same thing for space. If the reservation goes unused, the buyer forfeits the fee. If the carrier rolls the cargo, the carrier pays a penalty.
AEUs are tradable: if demand softens, you can resell unused reservations through a secondary market rather than eating the cost. AEUs sit on top of existing carrier contracts — they don't replace anything.
The same way it works for any shipper — you're the contract holder, so you buy AEUs directly against your own carrier agreements. You purchase reservations through Laneway and attach them to bookings you're already executing. Your carrier relationships and workflows stay intact. You're just adding a guarantee layer to the bookings you're already making.
3PL margins on ocean are thin, and a big chunk of the cost is exception handling. When bookings are rejected, it triggers rebooking workflows, customer escalations, carrier negotiations, documentation rework, and sometimes costly alternatives like air freight or premium spot rates.
When space is unbundled and separately priced, the exception rate drops dramatically. You buy AEUs for your customers' shipments, bookings reliably load as planned, and you're running the same volume through a much leaner operational workflow.
A single rolled booking can trigger 2-4 hours of rework across your team — rebooking, updating documentation, notifying the customer, adjusting downstream logistics. That's a substantial share of your ops capacity spent on rework rather than revenue-generating work. Reducing the exception rate even modestly frees up meaningful headroom — either to handle more volume without adding headcount, or to redeploy people toward higher-value work.
You resell them. AEUs are tradable — if a customer's volume drops or shifts lanes, you can list unused reservations on the secondary market and recover some or all of the cost. Acting early gives you the widest pool of buyers. This means you can buy AEUs proactively without being locked in if plans change — you have a liquid exit if you need one.
When your shipper holds the carrier contract, you operate as their AEU desk. The shipper's contract is the basis for purchasing AEUs, and you manage the reservation lifecycle on their behalf — buying, tracking, reselling when demand shifts.
Laneway pays you part of our commission to ensure you never have to charge your shippers for this service — you earn new revenue and offer a premium service at no cost to your customer.
Directly. When you're securing guaranteed space for your customers, you're delivering something tangible that competitors relying on soft allocations can't match. Fewer service failures means fewer difficult conversations and longer customer relationships.
Yes — and they build naturally on top of the operational improvement. Because you're the one managing AEUs, you can package the capability in several ways:
The margin improvement comes first and requires minimal effort. The new revenue streams are the next layer for providers who want to build a differentiated OCM offering.
No. From their perspective, they get more reliable service. You can surface AEU-backed guarantees as a TMS feature, or simply use AEUs on their behalf to improve execution quality. Either way, no new portals and no protracted shipper onboarding.
Yes. Laneway provides API access so you can build AEU purchasing, selling, and portfolio management directly into your existing TMS or customer portal. You manage the reservation lifecycle within your own systems — buying, tracking, reselling — without switching between platforms. For providers with proprietary platforms, this deepens your customer relationship and creates a capability competitors can't easily replicate.
No. The AEU price moves with the market — lower when space is available, higher when it's scarce. Service contracts remain intact throughout. The operational savings — fewer booking failures, less rework, better margin — come from the mechanism, not the market condition.
You purchase AEUs based on your customers' forecasts, by service and week. If their plans change, you can buy or sell AEUs on the market. When you're ready to book, you attach the AEU code to your existing contract booking process. The carrier recognizes the code and your customers' space is guaranteed.
Laneway provides APIs for reservation management. At the simplest level, you purchase AEUs through Laneway and attach them to bookings you're already executing with carriers — minimal lift. For deeper integration — managing the full AEU lifecycle within your own TMS — we provide documentation and support. The technical effort scales with how far you want to go, and you can start simple.
Reach out to discuss your customer base and the lanes where the hidden cost of space — booking failures, rework, exception handling — is most challenging. We'll help you quantify the operational savings and define the right starting point, whether that's buying AEUs against your own contracts, managing them on behalf of your shippers, or building a full managed capacity service. Laneway is onboarding partners for initial pilots, and early movers get the most input into how the 3PL experience is designed.
We'd love to hear from you. Reach out and we'll walk through how Laneway fits your operations.
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