A powder keg under the truck

Every year, in the fourth quarter, companies work on their budgets. Revenues and costs, cash inflows, capital acquisition, and expenses of all kinds are calculated. In industry and trade, a significant part of the cost statement is made up of anticipated expenses related to the purchase of logistics services. Their calculation is usually treated as a standard procedure. Once the volume of supply and sales flows has been determined, the number of anticipated transports and freight rates are calculated.

Danish physicist Niels Bohr famously said that “prediction is very difficult, especially if it concerns the future.” Since it is impossible to be certain about what will happen, it is worth formulating possible scenarios for changes in the company's environment. As a rule, most attention is paid to forecasting changes in customer behavior, as the demand they report determines not only how many products or services should be delivered to the market, but also at what price the products can be sold.

With regard to supply needs, forecasts are checked to analyze potential changes in the offerings of suppliers of raw materials, semi-finished products, and components. For several years, there has been no reason to pay much attention to potential changes in the European logistics services market, as the offer of land transport operators and carriers (unlike the changes in the offer of sea and air carriers operating on the global market) has been stable.

However, from 2024 onwards, signals from the international road freight transport services market and the labor market deserve careful analysis. In the coming years, the results of industrial and commercial activity may be determined to a much greater extent than before by disruptions in supply chains, in which international road transport services are a key element on the supply and distribution side. Access to the services provided by these carriers may become increasingly difficult. The consequence will be a further increase in freight rates for the transport of goods imported from abroad and exported abroad by land.

Before 2025, neither the media nor representatives of Western European industry and trade had yet addressed the issue of these companies' high dependence on the import of services provided by carriers from Poland, Romania, Lithuania, and other Central European countries. With each passing month in 2025, the situation is changing, as many cross-trade routes connecting Germany with France, the Netherlands, Italy, and the United Kingdom are beginning to experience a shortage of carriers willing to perform transport tasks. Rates began to rise, although there were no new impulses for price changes. Fuel has been relatively cheap for months, and weak activity in German industry means that demand for transport has not increased significantly. And yet something must have happened for prices on the transport market to rise significantly.

The long-predicted departure of drivers reaching retirement age is becoming a reality. The very large number of seniors (aged 60+) are being replaced on the labor market by a much smaller number of juniors (under 30). There is no increase in the number of immigrants from Eastern Europe, mainly Ukrainians and Belarusians, and it is precisely drivers from these countries who are most often employed by carriers providing cross-trade services. The growing aversion in many European countries, including Poland, to newcomers from different regions of the world makes it difficult to fill the gap in the labor market. It is easy to predict what will happen in Europe when there are no more foreigners behind the wheel of long-distance trucks. Just look at the road transport market in the US. The introduction in early 2025 by President Trump of a ban on hiring Mexicans and other Latin American citizens as drivers if they do not have the required level of English proficiency forced a reduction in employment in companies that provide transcontinental transport services. As a result, after a few months, a significant increase in transport service prices has been observed since the fall of 2025, even though fuel prices remain low and transport needs have not increased. In the US, hostility and restrictions on immigrants have caused logistics costs to rise across the economy.

In Europe, logistics operators and freight forwarders have been making various efforts for many decades to provide efficient service to their clients and maintain stable freight rates in their contracts. Despite rising labor costs incurred by road carriers, but in the face of falling fuel prices, shippers, logistics operators, and freight forwarders maintained their pressure and avoided freight rate increases. In the fall of 2025, a change in the relationship between carriers and their clients began on the European market.

European industrial and commercial companies that use long-distance road transport are facing the challenge of adjusting their logistics cost budgets for 2026 and beyond. It is worth considering at least two scenarios for the behavior of road carriers. A cost calculation that only anticipates cosmetic changes in rates should not be taken as the baseline scenario. It is very likely that rates – compared year-on-year – will increase by more than 10% in international transport, and in some geographical cross-trade relations even by 20-30%. When comparing rates over a period of many years, we must forget about the rate of EUR 1.00/km of loaded mileage used years ago for transport over distances ranging from 400 km to 1,000 km and above 1,000 km. The rate of EUR 2.00/km of loaded mileage should be taken into account, but only in geographical relations where there are relatively balanced counterflows. If the one-way freight flow significantly exceeds the return freight flow, it is reasonable to include a rate above EUR 2.00/km in the base budget calculation. Of course, it is possible to consider a scenario in which carriers are expected to limit their expectations to around EUR 1.60/km of loaded mileage for long distances. Such a scenario, which is favorable for shippers, is likely, but when creating it, it is necessary to carefully analyze whether such favorable conditions can actually be obtained and for how many months they can be maintained.

The introduction of significantly higher logistics costs into the budgets of industrial and commercial enterprises will have two advantages. Firstly, it will avoid the surprise in 2026 that the actual costs of purchasing transport services have increased significantly compared to the budgeted values. Secondly, within these companies, an analysis of the conditions for the implementation of transport processes will show that it is possible to seek carriers who accept relatively lower freight rates if favourable conditions are created for drivers arriving with deliveries or collecting loads. The more drivers from younger generations appear behind the wheel, the more important it becomes to provide them with social conditions ‘at the European level’. It is essential to eliminate the situation where employees of industrial plants and logistics centres enjoy satisfactory conditions for hygiene and rest, while drivers who are on the road and spend the night in their cabs do not have access to facilities and equipment that ensure decent conditions.

One of the signs of change in drivers' behaviour is their increasing assertiveness. They are communicating more and more bluntly to their employers, most of whom are road hauliers from small and micro enterprises, that high wages are important, but they will only agree to spend several days away from home on long-distance journeys if they are provided with the expected social conditions. Demographic changes mean that road transport must provide decent rest conditions for drivers. EU regulations have focused on road safety, which is why driving time has been controlled. Employees' requirements are increasing, and the conditions of their rest at loading and unloading sites, as well as during motorway journeys, where high-standard car parks are very rare, are becoming increasingly important.

Changes in driver behaviour and their growing aspirations on the one hand, and the adaptation of carriers registered in Poland and other Central European countries to these changes on the other, will primarily affect shippers in Western Europe and the logistics operators and freight forwarders working on their behalf. As a result, there will be increased pressure on the administrators of industrial facilities and logistics centres to provide adequate conditions for drivers. There will be increased pressure on public authorities and private operators who are motorway administrators to speed up the implementation of the EU-defined plan to modernise service points for professional drivers where heavy vehicles are parked. Any place that does not meet the expected standard may find itself on a ‘blacklist’ that can be easily disseminated in the electronic media. The better the AI-powered language translators are, the easier it is for negative reviews and increasingly harsh comments from drivers to spread transnationally.

Polish exporters and importers should also be vigilant. If freight rates in cross-trade relations increase significantly, pressure from road hauliers to increase rates for cross-border transport will intensify. Competition between shippers will also intensify with regard to the standard of service provided to drivers during loading and unloading of vehicles and ensuring friendly contact with local staff.

A new era in road transport is coming. Those who overlook the changes taking place in the international road transport market and fail to take adaptive measures may find themselves in the role of the one who lit the powder keg under the lorry parked on the premises of their own industrial plant or logistics centre. And then, no other lorry will pull up to the ruins.