Magnus CEO: Fuel Surcharge Gaps Erode Carrier Margins
Matt Cartwright of Magnus Technologies says most trucking firms fail to collect full fuel surcharges due to poor visibility.
Most trucking companies are missing out on fuel surcharge revenue they are owed. According to Magnus Technologies CEO Matt Cartwright, a lack of real-time visibility prevents carriers from capturing their full contractual entitlements.
Magnus Technologies, an enterprise transportation management software provider, publishes a diesel fuel snapshot to help fleets benchmark costs. The goal is to close the gap between the actual cost of fuel for a load and the amount recovered through surcharge programs. Cartwright said the original point of fuel surcharges was to neutralize cost burdens so carriers would not shoulder them alone.
The Visibility Problem
Many fleets lack systems that can dynamically recalculate fuel surcharges based on how freight is actually moved. Cartwright explained this in an interview with FreightWaves. He said carriers often sit on unused contractual flexibility simply because they lack the automated software to act on it.
Magnus builds its calculations from granular operational data. This includes truck location, pickup and delivery points, miles driven, and idle time. The platform then pulls in index prices or customer contracts. It produces a load-level report showing the difference between actual fuel burned and surcharge recovery.
Expansion Beyond Automotive
The company originated in the automotive transport sector. Cartwright traced its roots to United Road beginning in 2001. Magnus remains the largest software provider in vehicle freight. It is now expanding into the for-hire dry van and general freight market.
Cartwright cited the roughly 90% of U.S. Fleets that operate 10 trucks or fewer as an underserved segment. He said these smaller fleets have historically lacked access to enterprise-grade tools. Customer concentration risk in the automotive vertical is also a factor in the push to diversify.
Automotive freight carriers depend heavily on a small number of large OEM customers. These relationships can be worth tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars to individual carriers. A single customer decision to switch providers can be destabilizing. Cartwright pointed to publicly traded PAM Transportation as a current example of a carrier under pressure from high auto-sector concentration.
Legal and Operational Safeguards
On freight security, Cartwright said Magnus's continuous track-and-trace architecture gives customers a near-perfect chain of custody. This includes GPS timestamps, QR-code-based gate controls, and a driver-facing mobile app branded under the Magnus name.
The single-brand app structure provides legal insulation on questions of driver agency. Cartwright referenced the Lupe Superior case in Dallas County. In that case, a jury found a driver was a borrowed employee in part because he carried a C.H. Robinson-branded app. "Having the Magnus app is just a facilitation of the work," Cartwright said. "It does not assert control or agency."
The platform is described as a quote-to-cash enterprise SaaS system. It handles order management, EDI integrations, fuel card ingestion, and invoicing in a single environment. The company tracks published indexes, including the EIA, to set a benchmark carriers and shippers can use as a common reference point.
