Many companies that transport via roads are too small in scale. This leads to low transport efficiency levels. In Europe, 24% of trucks run empty or are, on average, only loaded at 57% of their maximum gross weight. This offers us a significant playing field for cost improvement. If we know that 23% of the European transport greenhouse-gas emissions originate from trucks, that gives us significant improvement miles ahead for our battle against global warming.
How can we improve this 73% of intra-European freight transport that takes place via road—and maybe even relieve us of hundreds of miles of road congestion every day?
Let’s start with vertical collaboration. Everybody knows this as the integration of suppliers, manufacturers and customers that share the same supply chain. Now you can look at horizontal collaboration as Uber for companies with a road transport segment. What if we could share this 24% of empty trucks and fill them up? What would happen if we could load these trucks more by using the additional 43% of capacity in order to reach maximum gross weights? That would make us more competitive, satisfy our customer’s expectations, relieve our roads of empty trucks and increase the overall quality of living.
More efficient round trips, reduced inter-drop distances, reduced empty mileage, increased fill rates, increased shipping frequencies, reduced road traffic and reduced greenhouse gases. These are just a few of the possible answers to the question, “What’s in it for me?”
Besides these advantages, there are also some challenges, of course. The first and most important one is to identify and connect with the right partner(s). Then, an estimation of the cost savings is needed. Moreover, important questions need answering. How do we share these gains fairly? What about the legal components of such a setup? Who will govern the shared confidential data, and what about responsibilities (EXW, DDP, etc.)? If trucks are being shared between different parties, this also implies the partners need to plan with mutually agreed allocation rules.
We at Bluecrux believe that the benefits far outweigh the challenges in the next steps of your transport optimization. Familiar use cases prove total cost savings of 25%, and long-term partnerships are the future of the business world.
Will you be the next to hop on the train? Bluecrux can help. So get in touch!
