Newsletters

Transporeon published last week its latest Transport Market Monitor which shows that shortage in capacity is driving European road freight spot prices close to a three-year high. The analysis is based on road transportation data of more than 1.8 million freight loads on the spot market per year which was updated earlier this month. In July 2021, while the price index fell slightly by 2.6% compared to June 2021, it recorded a significant increase of 21.1% compared to the same month last year. The capacity index remains low, decreasing by 1.4% compared to June 2021 and by 26.9% from July 2020.

"The truckload capacity shortages in Europe continue, which results in high spot market rates while available capacity remains on a low level. This development has been driven by many factors and it creates inflationary pressure on the economy, potentially slowing down its recovery,” commented Transporeon's executive director, Freight Procurement & Audit, Nikolay Pargov. He continued: “On the supply side, we expect more capacity will become available on the market again. However, the demand side is equally important. The main question here is how much of the current demand is based on recovery and long-term growth and what share is driven by the so called ‘bullwhip’ effect!”, which is defined as the demand distortion that travels upstream in the supply chain from the retailer through to the wholesaler and manufacturer due to the variance of orders which may be larger than that of sales.

Source: Lloyd’s Loading List