Transport Management System (TMS)

The transportation management system (TMS) market continues to grow globally despite the current economic crisis, as per the Gartner report released in March 2021. Transportation is an essential part of supply chains has become an even more critical part of the supply chain, increasing the need for technology to understand supply chain visibility and facilitate order fulfillment and network routes optimization. 

The Transport Management system encompasses managing transportation operations of all types, including tracking and managing every aspect of vehicle maintenance, fuel costing, routing and mapping, warehousing, communications, EDI implementations, traveler and cargo handling, carrier selection and management, accounting.

This Magic Quadrant focuses explicitly on holistic, multimodal domestic TMSs for use by shippers or non-asset-based, 3PLs, and 4PL organizations. In this context, Gartner defines “holistic” as a TMS that incorporates all core capabilities and “domestic” as movements within a region, mainly through domestic modes of transportation. “Multimodal” refers to the different methods supported for domestic transportation such as, but not limited to, FTL, LTL, rail, intermodal, parcel, last mile, and barge.

The primary emphasis of this Magic Quadrant developed by the Gartner is on systems that support for-hire transportation management operations. As explained above, the shippers and users employ transportation companies across various shipping modes, including over the road, private/dedicated fleet, small package, rail, and intermodal. Global companies and companies that import products from different regions also use air and ocean as the primary transport mode, which is part of the international TMSs but is, in some cases, covered by the multimodal domestic TMS vendors.

The Outlook

The growth over five years from 2019 to 2024 is 60% over five years. The latest Gartner forecast on TMS worldwide estimates that the market is expected to grow from $1.32 billion to $2.11 billion.