SOLUTIONS FOR OVER-SUPPLY IN TRANSPORT SERVICES

In a period of economic recession, in which the balance of supply and demand has lowered prices below profitability, carriers seek solutions to solve the problem of too many trucks and not enough freight.

The sector’s representatives provided us with an insight. Firstly, the main effect of the high capacity of transport is a continuous decrease in the price asked for transport services. ”The only ones who will manage to cross this period will be those carriers who have solid contracts and proved thoroughness in transport. Such customer- carrier relationship grows over time and is now bearing fruit. Operating costs are not covered by the prices of transport provided by direct customers or freight forwarders and this business model is doomed to financial failure,“ said Siegfried Mayer, secretary of the APTE 2002 road transporters’ association. He believes that one way to solve the problem is to create so called ”cold parks“, with inactive vehicles exempted from taxes. Another possible solution to limit the number of road vehicles could be in the hands of companies that have international networks specialized in rental trucks. Theoretically, they could retrieve the exceeding number of vehicles from the Romanian operators to place them on foreign markets. Razvan Nan, Finance & Fleet Sales Manager HAMA Trucks in Romania (a company specialized in truck renting) said that this solution is feasible only if the vehicles were to be ousted on African markets. In Europe, it would be quite difficult to implement such measures because the crisis has spread everywhere and there is an oversupply of trucks.