Truck and Track Summer 2025 www.truckandtrack.com 30 CONTAINER HAULAGE Get more competitive by getting quotes for UK and European haulage on the Boxhaul platform. BoxHaul is a neutral marketplace for container and general haulage. The platform makes it easy for shippers and haulage companies to negotiate rates for road transport. 2025 has brought several new challenges for shippers and freight forwarders If global trade uncertainty and geopolitical instability was not bad enough, rising costs due to inflation and increased taxation are forcing businesses to achieve more with fewer resources. To win in this tough economic situation, businesses will need to place more emphasis on operational efficiency whilst maintaining their service levels. If you are involved in ocean freight, one of the key aspects that affect both cost and service levels is your inland transportation strategy. To put it simply, should you focus on carrier haulage or merchant haulage? Let’s run through the pros and cons of each of these strategies Carrier Haulage Some shippers choose to let shipping lines handle the inland haulage for their ocean shipments. The Pros: ■ Simplifies operational processes: One partner, the shipping line, handles the end-to-end journey. This theoretically means a single point of contact, access to tracking the end-to-end journey and one invoice for containers transported. ■ Competitive pricing for UK exports: Shipping lines try to avoid empty repositioning costs back to Asia by offering lower rates for ocean and inland transport for UK exports. The Cons: ■ Generally associated with poor service levels: Hard to get hold of customer service and higher share of deliveries not arriving on-time when compared to merchant haulage. ■ Higher risk of detention and demurrage: Shipping lines will still charge detention and demurrage fees to the shipper regardless of their delays on their own inland transport service. ■ Higher potential for hidden costs: As a result of the two points above, operational delays and risk of demurrage and detention can result in additional unexpected costs. Saif Khalaf CEO & Co-founder at BoxHaul Get more competitive by getting quotes for UK and European haulage on the Boxhaul platform
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