Let me break it down to you guys. Panther has a load board where partner carriers can bid on loads that their own drivers turn down. The loads on the Panther bid board are usually short loads and loads that are going into undesirable areas. Like a load going from Atlanta GA to Miami FL. Everyone here knows that there isn't much junk coming out of Miami to begin with, so drivers will turn that load down. Another example of a panther brokered load would be a load out of California, such as a load going from one point in California to another point in California. There are also some regular loads that are brokered out of Salt Lake City UT, because there are rarely enough trucks in that area to cover the freight.
This so called "secret bid board" is nothing special guys; and if anything it benefits the Panther drivers. This is because the more loads "Panther brokers out" ((when they do not have one of their own vehicles in the area)) the more freight you will get from that customer in the future. If Panther started turning down all of their customers out west because they do not have drivers in the area (or one of their own drivers did not want to do a short run) those customers would not call Panther with loads.
So, people, lets not get ahead of ourselves here. If you were to have your own cargo insurance policy (1,000,000) general liability and (100,000) cargo, --which would cost you around 600 a month for one cargo van-- you could then haul freight from Panthers bid board. But, from what i've seen, there is not enough freight being brokered on their board to keep you busy all of the time, and you have to be in the right place at the right time.
People who have one cargo van and bid on Panthers board also have partner carrier agreements with multiple companies. Also, the "one man cargo van driver" as a partner carrier is a very rare thing, as the fixed operating costs are pretty high. So don't get all bent out of shape because Bolt or some other company runs that mini run that no one else wanted. After all "someones gotta service that customer" otherwise you have a very upset customer and you run the risk of losing that account.