Prepared by Spicy Frog, CEO of Red Frog Freight
Red Frog Freight's mission is to provide fast and affordable delivery of any volume of freight. Commonly referred to as just "Red Frog" or "RF", its logistical divisions comprise three operational corporations:
- Red Frog Freight (RFF) is the high security logistics division of the Red Frog companies, service established in 2009;
- Black Frog Logistics (BFL), the low and null security logistics division, established in 2010; and
- Blue Frog Freight (BFF), a high collateral logistics division, established in 2011
All are supported in part by Red Frog Investments ‒ where Red Frog Freight service was born ‒ though each freight division has great autonomy in how it operates.
For details about how data was collected, refer to the Data Collection section of this report.
Stats Summary (all divisions)
| Total Contracts | Total Volume | Total Rewards | |
| RFF | 54,530 | 22,451,594,301 m3 | 259,229,950,000 isk |
| BFF | 227 | 69,627,685 m3 | 6,342,925,000 isk |
| BFL | 2,680 | 583,575,772 m3 | 168,847,000,000 isk |
| Total | 57,437 | 23,104,797,758 m3 | 434,419,875,000 isk |
Summary of Red Frog Freight (RFF)
Official 2011 data (via channel upload method):
| Total Contracts: | 54,530 |
| Total Volume: | 22,451,594,301 m3 |
| Total Jumps: | 662,757 |
| Total Rewards*: | 259,229,950,000 isk |
Contracts (RFF)
Since June 2010, the total contracts completed each month have remained fairly constant. In January 2011 the number of contracts completed exceeded any month in 2010. Soon after, the 2011 record of the most contracts completed in a month was set in March with 5,347 contracts. There is a seasonal low demand for courier freight services in June and July.
Figure 1: Number of contracts completed in 2009, 2010 and 2011 by RFF
In the volume per contract, there is a large bunch of smaller volume contracts; 36% of contracts with 140,000 m3 or less. A spike of contracts appears with about 420,000 m3 in volume. Many contracts are created at near the maximum contract volume of 860,000 m3. The contracts above 860,000 m3 that show on the chart may be due to errors in the data collection method, or the over volume contracts were mistakenly or deliberately accepted by RFF pilots (13 contracts).
Figure 2: Number of contracts by volume per contract, year 2011
Comparison to Contract API data
Data compiled via the contract API interface is only available since mid-July. API data has the advantages of being far more accurate than the channel upload method, and also provides more data such as collateral, delivery times, and customers. Since channel upload data covered the entire 2011 year, we chose to use it as the official source of data for this report.
In comparing the channel upload data to the contract API data, as suspected, the channel upload method under-reports the total contracts. This is due to times when no channel uploader was running, such as just after downtime or when an uploader logged off.
By calculation of the last five months of 2011, the actual contracts completed are approximately 9.2% more than the official channel upload data. The difference in volume, jumps and calculated rewards are a direct result of the omission of contracts.
API data captures and reports actual rewards, which include tips added by the customer. Total collateral can now also be calculated with API data.
Contract API data - completed contracts (RFF)
(five full months August 1st to midnight December 31st)
| Contract API data | Official data | |
| Total Contracts: | 25,029 | 22,923 |
| Total Volume: | 9,823,776,078.41 m3 | 9,016,809,423.00 m3 |
| Total Jumps: | 298,086 | 272,438 |
| Total Rewards (calculated): | 116,844,600,000 isk* | 106,814,800,000 isk* |
| Total Rewards (actual): | 128,840,219,671 isk | Not available |
| Total Collateral: | 17,444,732,580,721 isk | Not available |
| Total unique customers: | 4,111 | Not available |
Regarding total rewards, the reader should note that a few contracts had extremely high rewards. Of the contracts that were accepted and completed, one with a reward of 9 billion isk was returned to the issuer (July 28th). A contract with the next highest reward of 3 billion was rejected by RFF.
| Reward | Jumps | Volume | Date Accepted |
| 1,200,000,000 isk | 2 | 335142.86 m3 | 2011.09.06 07:57 |
| 600,000,000 isk | 2 | 828108 m3 | 2011.08.11 21:23 |
| 150,000,000 isk | 11 | 860000 m3 | 2011.09.03 16:37 |
| 75,000,000 isk | 15 | 237685 m3 | 2011.10.05 05:53 |
| 68,000,000 isk | 18 | 22183.5 m3 | 2011.09.19 01:45 |
| 50,000,000 isk | 17 | 766100 m3 | 2011.08.26 14:45 |
| 50,000,000 isk | 17 | 272376.25 m3 | 2011.09.30 21:13 |
| 50,000,000 isk | 1 | 92000 m3 | 2011.10.17 23:34 |
| 50,000,000 isk | 15 | 565403.72 m3 | 2011.11.09 03:03 |
| 45,000,000 isk | 24 | 118000 m3 | 2011.10.07 08:32 |
| Total contracts: | 25,029 contracts |
| Contracts with tips: | 5,633 contracts (22.5%) |
| Contracts with no tips: | 19,396 contracts (77.5%) |
| Tips*: | 11,995,619,671 isk |
Regional coverage of service (RFF)
In 2011, Red Frog Freight serviced* all high sec regions (21 regions), and 880 systems with stations in them. This equals 98.7% of the systems that Red Frog Freight is able to service (891 contiguous high sec systems that have stations). This is an increase of 29 solar systems compared to the number of solar systems RFF serviced in 2010.
Here is a table of the regional statistics:
| Region | Contract start (with top ten in parentheses) |
Contract destination (with top ten in parentheses) |
Net movement of contracts (green = into region, yellow= no net movement in or out, orange = out of region |
| Lonetrek | 2,310 (5) | 5,526 (3) | -3,216 |
| The Citadel | 1,418 (9) | 3,496 (4) | -2,078 |
| Khanid | 1,162 | 1,778 (8) | -616 |
| Placid | 1,205 (10) | 1,784 (7) | -579 |
| Derelik | 1,106 | 1,474 (10) | -368 |
| Molden Heath | 326 | 419 | -93 |
| Kor-Azor | 748 | 775 | -27 |
| Black Rise | 435 | 395 | 40 |
| Genesis | 440 | 380 | 60 |
| Devoid | 623 | 550 | 73 |
| Essence | 901 | 821 | 80 |
| Verge Vendor | 551 | 458 | 93 |
| The Bleak Lands | 336 | 179 | 157 |
| Sinq Laison | 2,260 (6) | 2,080 (5) | 180 |
| Tash-Murkon | 1,544 (8) | 1,339 | 205 |
| Metropolis | 1,900 (7) | 1,670 (9) | 230 |
| Domain | 7,039 (2) | 6,747 (2) | 292 |
| Heimatar | 2,332 (4) | 1,983 (6) | 349 |
| Kador | 676 | 271 | 405 |
| Everyshore | 2,652 (3) | 574 | 2,078 |
| The Forge | 24,566 (1) | 21,831 (1) | 2,735 |
| Total | 54,530 | 54,530 |
According to our contract database, there were 15 contiguous high sec systems (with stations) not serviced* by Red Frog Freight in 2011: Aldilur, Averon, Channace, Colcer, Eddar, Gallareue, Halibai, Hecarrin, Inis-Ilix, Kakki, Kizama, Larkugei, Madimal, Olelon, Todeko
*serviced = pick up or drop off location
Top 10 start systems (RFF)
| Solar System | Contract Starts |
|---|---|
| Jita | 17,299 |
| Amarr | 4,222 |
| Rens | 1,356 |
| Mitsolen | 1,053 |
| Osmon | 944 |
| Dodixie | 926 |
| Outuni | 862 |
| Hek | 641 |
| Adacyne | 560 |
| Carirgnottin | 459 |
Top 10 destination systems
| Solar System | Contract Destinations (RFF) |
|---|---|
| Jita | 17,411 |
| Amarr | 2,819 |
| Madirmilire | 2,331 |
| Isikano | 1,321 |
| Poinen | 1,075 |
| Dodixie | 990 |
| Rens | 980 |
| Parses | 942 |
| Kaimon | 918 |
| Haatomo | 909 |
Top 20 visited stations (RFF)
Contract API data (Aug 1st to Dec 31st). Visits include a contract start or contract destination.
Losses (RFF)
Specific contract failures for the entire year is incomplete, having not recorded the beginning of the year. A failed contract could be due to a pilot unable to complete in the 24h completion time, a ship loss, or theft of the contents. API data is available for the final five months of 2011.
| Total failed contracts: | 16 contracts |
| Total failed collateral: | 10,446,000,000 isk |
Summary of Blue Frog Freight (BFF)
2011 saw the birth of a service desired by our customers for a long time: High collateral and Rush service, performed by Blue Frog Freight.
Blue Frog Freight started low profile, to see how customers would respond, and it slowly picked up momentum within the Red Frog Alliance. BFF's monthly contracts are increasing, and a good reputation is building.
It’s important to note that a lot of the "rush" contracts are handled directly between the customer and the individual pilot, which lowers the reported statistics by about 15%.
Official 2011 data - completed contracts (via contract API, since September 11, 2011):
| Total Contracts: | 227 |
| Total Unique Customers: | 115 |
| Total Volume: | 69,627,685.32 m3 |
| Total Jumps: | 3575 |
| Total Rewards: | 6,342,925,000 isk |
| Total Collateral: | 654,093,287,622 isk |
Summary of Black Frog Logistics (BFL)
Black Frog Logistics provides low security and null security deliveries.
There were many contracts completed by Black Frog Freight prior to July 14th, when the contract API data record begins. The contracts before July 14th were not tracked, and are omitted.
Official 2011 data - completed contracts (via contract API, since July 14, 2011):
| Total contracts: | 2,680 |
| Total low security / high sec island contracts: | 2,043 |
| Total null security contracts: | 637 |
| Total Unique Customers: | 1,160 |
| Total Volume: | 583,575,772.76 m3 |
| Total Rewards: | 168,847,000,000 isk |
| Total Collateral: | 4,215,362,445,448 isk |
Wars
Over our history, Red Frog has been wardecced on a very regular basis. Generally, wardecs were from small pirate, merc, and 'unknown purpose' corporations numbering less than 20 pilots and lasted no more than a week or two. We used* a simple system of in corp contract alts to accept contracts for out of corp freighter pilots to continue operation. In 2011, the pattern of small corp, short wardecs continued until June, when a one-man corporation initiated a wardec that lasted nearly 6 months. Since our wardec system allowed us to continue operation, the pilots settled into a routine and soon forgot what life without a wardec was like.
Several months after the wardec began, we received reports in private and later through the forums that CCP's wardec rules were changing, but not yet publicized. The Directors used a total of 6 different accounts to submit petitions to CCP to ask questions about the specifics of the situation. We wanted to be sure that we got consistent replies from all the GMs. As is now well known, we were informed that decshields were once again permitted and that all other restrictions had been lifted. At that point, we began to experiment with various decshield arrangements to see how many we could establish simultaneously. We eventually settled on one that was relatively cheap but also minimized administrative overhead and set about seeing how high we could get the wardec fee before the one man corp would stop paying. Beginning in two-week increments and eventually one week increments, we upped the total number of simultaneous wardecs beyond 50 (or 2.5billion in weekly war fees). We held that position for two weeks before the one man corp finally let the wardec go. We estimate (no one really kept count) that he paid a grand total of 7.5 billion to 8.5 billion isk to maintain the decs. We paid far, far less. Clearly the wardec system is broken in just about every way that it can be. The summer 2012 expansion should be interesting.
Only one other corp wardecced us after that and they dropped the wardec after only a few days.
*Used: In 2012, Red Frog has moved to a permanent wardec model. Future wardecs will have zero affect on day to day operations.
Improvements to the service
Some improvements to internal procedures have resulted in greater hauling efficiency:
- Contract API data has provided:
- More detailed statistics of the current queue, delivery times and other metrics that update every 15 minutes
- Updated internal route planning tools for RF pilots
- The partial automation and improvements to the pilot recruitment systems
- Introduction of Star Points, awarded for preferential acceptance of older contracts
Looking into 2012
At the end of 2011, day-to-day operations and recruitment for Red Frog Freight were transferred from Locin WeEda to Red Frog Rufen. The long-term active Directors include M'uva Wa'eva (Black Frog Logistics CEO), Zaxix (Black Frog Logistics co-CEO), Spicy Frog and several others who represent Red Frog's long history. Our newest directors include Nataniya and Ave Volta, both of whom have been some of our most hardcore haulers.
With more competition and an ever increasing queue, Red Frog Rufen has helped to shift the Red Frog culture toward more active hauling methods and incentivized voluntary queue management. He has also built a tier of contract managers and recruiters to help distribute the burdens of administration. As this report was being drafted, 2012 is already turning into a record setting year with our highest ever monthly totals. We look forward to coming year.
A big thank-you
To the scores of Red Frog pilots and thousands of customers, this service would not be possible without you ‒ thank-you!
We would like to thank CCP, who built the contract API in 2011 that has become invaluable in delivering better freight service.
Instrumental in the preparation of this report were the contributions and corrections from Red Frog Rufen, Gabriel Rosencrantz, M'uva Wa'eva and Nataniya - thanks!
Notes on Data Collection
For years, Red Frog collected data about contracts using an automated chat log file monitoring system. Helper software originally built by Hober Zarel was replaced with an upgraded version courtesy Trillianne Geist. It allowed the collection of a limited and slightly inaccurate set of fields: accepting character, start system, end system, volume, accepted time (time when it was dragged and dropped into channel). This method relied on the pilots to operate the system, times are not exact, and it can be missing contracts or contain a small number of duplicate contracts.
CCP launched a contract API method on the test API server on August 11th, 2011. Red Frog immediately tested the contract API. As a result, API contract data was downloaded and stored since July 11th, 2011 (the contract data contained the previous month of data). Once the contract API was enabled on the live server, this data was merged successfully with the test server data, to provide a continuous archive of contract API data since July 11th.
Since contract API data was not available for the entire 2011 year, Red Frog statistics used the channel upload data as the official source of statistics for 2011. For 2012, all statistics will rely on the contract API data exclusively.
Black Frog Logistics data is only available via the contract API, from July 14th, 2011
Blue Frog Freight data is available via the contract API since the service's inception September 10th, 2011.
As always, the calculation of jumps does not completely match the paid jumps made by pilots, due to a small proportion of multiple pickup contracts and how the jump counts are calculated. In short, the total jumps reported on multiple pickup routes will always be greater than the optimized route jumps.