Insights
Playbooks, product thinking and the economics of modern logistics.
The workshop conversation: internal bay or external service?
An internal bay is a fixed cost that must earn its keep; an external workshop costs control and scheduling. How to frame the choice, and the hybrid most fleets run.
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Price lists that quote themselves
Zone matrices, weight breaks, minimums and surcharges price consistently only when the system applies them — not "call for a quote."
Empty running in Europe: what the statistics actually say
Eurostat's own figures on empty vehicle-kilometres in EU road freight: the national/international split, the trend, and what the average hides.
A tablet in the cab, or the phone already in the pocket?
Dedicated tablets promise control and mostly deliver a second device to charge, update and lose. Where a mounted tablet still earns its place over BYOD.
Standing orders: the recurring freight you re-book by hand
The Tuesday milk-run booked from scratch every Monday is toil with an error rate. What a saved shape buys you, and the review discipline it demands in return.
Detention and waiting time: charging for the hours you already lost
Two hours at a dock is real cost most carriers swallow. Contract for detention, capture arrival/departure evidence, and invoice it without souring the account.
The offline hour: what your operation does when connectivity drops
Tunnels and dead zones are routine, not exceptional. What a driver app must hold locally, what can be told later, and what genuinely cannot wait for a signal.
Workshop parts: a stockroom is a ledger you can walk into
Parts stock drifts when consumption is recorded at annoyance-time, not use-time. Work orders, honest reorder points, and a ledger easier to use than the shortcut.
Reading an RFQ like a carrier, answering like a partner
Contract freight RFQs reward the bidder who shows data, not the lowest number. What to bring to the answer, and the clauses that predict an unprofitable contract.
One source of truth: what it means when you take it literally
Every vendor claims a single source of truth. The useful test is narrower: can two screens in your operation disagree about the same fact — and who wins?
Notifications your customers want (and the ones they mute)
Four events earn a message: booked, collected, delivered, problem. Everything else trains the customer to ignore you — including the one that mattered.
Cross-docking or storage? Two warehouse jobs that pretend to be one
Flow-through is measured in hours and touches, custody in days and accuracy. Deciding which job a consignment is — at intake, not at discovery.
The personal data a carrier forgets it holds
Driver cards, GPS traces, dashcam footage, consignee names, a signature on a doorstep. What the GDPR actually asks of a transport operator, with article numbers.
The truck you buy for December stands still in February
A six-week peak does not justify a vehicle you own for ten years. What handing a run to another carrier actually asks of your office, and where it goes wrong.
The dates that ground a truck are not the ones in your service plan
Roadworthiness, tachograph calibration, ADR and driver CPC each run on their own clock, and any of them can park a truck. One register, forward notice, an owner.
Five numbers a small fleet should look at every Monday
Utilisation, empty share, revenue per vehicle-day, DSO and unplanned downtime — why these five, and why adding more dashboards is usually less management.
The damage file you build before anything is damaged
A damage claim is decided by what was recorded at handover. The reservations, photos and weights worth capturing every time, and the clocks that start at delivery.
Drivers' hours are a planning constraint, not a driver problem
Nine hours a day, 56 a week, a 45-minute break after four and a half. The EU limits are arithmetic a dispatcher can do before the truck moves.
Why TMS implementations fail (and the failure is rarely the software)
Four patterns sink transport software projects: dirty master data, no named owner, a big-bang cutover, and old habits wearing new screens.
API or EDI? Choosing the right pipe for each partner
EDI is an agreement with batch semantics; an API is interactive and cheap to stand up. Which fits which partner, and why most carriers run both.
The first four weeks with a new customer decide whether the account is profitable
Winning the contract is the easy part. The four weeks after it — addresses, price list, booking channel, invoice format — decide what the account actually earns.
Barcodes in a small warehouse: cheap discipline that compounds
A label printer and a scanner turn a warehouse memory into a lookup anyone can do. What to label, what a barcode should encode, and when to scan it.
Cabotage in plain language: what the rules actually permit
Three operations in seven days, then four days out. What the EU cabotage rules permit as of August 2026, and what must be produced at a roadside check.
Your trailer fleet is an asset register nobody keeps
Trailers hold real capital and are usually tracked from memory. The four facts worth recording about each one, and how they end the Friday trailer hunt.