A Year of Optimism for the transport sector

Last spring, we launched the "Optimists Club" campaign from Teleroute, in aim of breathing life into the transport sector that had really suffered as a result of the coronavirus crisis and which, despite everything, continued to do everything in its power to keep the supply chain from grinding to a standstill.

"Optimism" is the perfect word to describe the results of the macro-survey launched by Alpega Group in early 2021. This survey asked over 1200 logistics and transport companies in Europe about how they had been affected by the health crisis and other challenges, such as the increased digitization of the logistics industry and Brexit.

The first lesson we can take from the survey is that - although most respondents reported believing that the worst was behind them - many were still wary about what the coming months might hold. As such, the degree of optimism about the transport sector stood at an average of 6.2 out of 10 at the beginning of the year. As an example, 72% of respondents indicated that they believe that the profits obtained by transport companies in 2021 would be equal to or greater than those of 2020, while 75% believed that the number of transactions would remain the same or even grow over the course of the year.

Although there is still a long road ahead, it seems that, with just a few weeks until the end of the year, these expectations have come to pass. This is what we have concluded by analyzing the Teleroute freight exchange activity, which, at the end of November, had a 53% higher annual volume of freight offers than in the same period in 2020. This level of freight activity is even better than pre-pandemic figures, with 30% more offers than in 2019.

The celebration of the 11th edition of WConnecta, the biggest transport networking event in Europe, also gave us the feeling that things were getting back to normal. It was held on a smaller scale, with 300 professionals and 122 transport companies from across Europe meeting in Barcelona for this face-to-face event — the first following the health crisis. The event was marked by optimism, resilience, and the desire to get back to business as usual.

As a result of all this, we are approaching the end of the year with a positive attitude and with confidence that this winter season will prove to be the icing on the cake for 2021 — the year that saw our trucks back on the road and brought hope to our professionals. Once again, this sector has proved to be an Optimists Club that continues to do what it does best: transport freight.