Jan de Rijk signs up to trucking platform to combat ‘our biggest challenge’

Road feeder (RFS) firm Jan de Rijk Logistics has signed up to slot booking platform Trucking CDM as part of efforts to reduce waiting times at airports.

The RFS company said that the industry is under pressure to reduce costs but also achieve faster transit times between European airports, because much of the trucking operation is spent waiting at airports.

The Trucking CDM platform provides “transparency, predictability and a slot allocation planning mechanism between truckers and handlers”.

Stefan Pieters, manager of operations and development at Jan de Rijk, said: “Our biggest challenge boils down to the waiting hours spent at cargo handling facilities, caused by lack of communication and transparency.

“As there is often no contractual relation between the trucker and the handler both parties operate on behalf of the airline but not directly connected to each other.

“This is very frustrating and ties up vehicles costing extra and at the same time causing more emissions.

“If we could share data about when the freight is available, the status of vehicle combined shipment information we could communicate much better with the handler thus creating, insight and data sharing for all parties involved.”

The Trucking CDM platform allows data sharing between the involved stakeholders in regard to the truck movement.

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Jan de Rijk is currently sharing its traffic data from and towards Amsterdam within Europe.

“Sharing data will allow all parties to access and use real-time information,” Pieters added. “In order to get rid of congestion at airports, sharing data is the only way forward. We have to work together as one community to support connectivity between stakeholders in the air cargo industry.

“[Embracing] data sharing platforms will help us to fully integrate our systems, as opposed to the several single systems that we have today.

“During the recent outbreak of Covid-19, we had to work with a rapidly changing situation and a very flexible supply chain. Data sharing becomes more and more important and we should all be ready for pooling data within the air cargo supply chain, which gives us all the ability to incorporate this flexibility.”

The platform has been developed by CargoHub based at Schiphol Airport.

It is not the only trucking platform that is targeting the RFS market. Last month, Nallian announced that it had also developed a slot booking system.