In the first quarter of 2020, Timocom recorded a 16% increase in freight offers compared to the same period last year; transports from EU countries to Italy rose by 26% and to Poland by as much as 53%. Refrigerated vehicles were particularly popular. At its peak, demand for temperature-controlled transportation was 50 percent higher than in the previous year, according to the freight exchange operator.

Freight volumes down by more than two thirds in mid-March

The turning point in the upward trend was marked from mid-March by the Europe-wide lockdown, which largely brought production facilities to a standstill and - with the exception of food retail - led to a slump in delivery volumes. "Despite an increase in transports in the food sector, freight volumes fell by more than two thirds across Europe from mid to the end of March," reports Fecke. "There has never been a comparable development like this before Easter." Up to 750,000 freight and loading space offers are usually posted at Timocom every day.

Although transport companies are desperately looking for orders to fill their trucks in times of lockdown, the freight capacities placed on the market via Timocom fell in the first quarter of this year. The number of freely available trucks in Q1 fell by three percent across Europe compared to the same quarter of the previous year; in Germany, the number of vehicle offers fell by as much as 15 percent. How does this fit together?

"We are observing that transport companies are temporarily taking parts of their vehicle fleets off the market due to a lack of capacity utilization," comments Timocom spokesperson Gunnar Gburek. The state of emergency in which the world finds itself these weeks is leading to market distortions. Nevertheless, Gburek is confident: "There are currently signs of a slight upward trend in freight supply. However, how the transport industry will develop in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic will only become clear in the second quarter."

The FreightTech company Timocom has been using the transport barometer to analyze the development of transport supply and demand on the freight exchange integrated into the Smart Logistics System since 2009. In this way, more than 130,000 users generate up to 750,000 international cargo space and freight offers every day. The system helps over 43,000 Timocom customers to achieve their logistics goals smartly, safely and easily.