Improved transparency in road freight – enabled by technology – could allow shippers to maximise their inbound and outbound loads and thus bring down the overall cost of goods transport, according to Clifford Blackburn, CEO of TSI Central Station. “There are currently so many dead legs, with trucks returning from a drop-off with no cargo. Technology can be leveraged to gain insight into where the gaps are and prevent hauliers from wasting money on empty trips,” he explained. According to Blackburn, fewer but more optimised trips means the price of transport would come down, the carbon footprint would be reduced and every operator would have the ability to run fewer vehicles with higher returns. “TSI Central Station, a fourth party logistics service provider, is backed by technology that allows for insight into the full supply chain and thus improved planning along every leg of the journey,” he told FTW. Blackburn pointed out that if more businesses bought into this, the transport sector would become a “shining example” of how technology brought road and rail together – working in unison. “Reduced costs and improved planning through technology is TSI’s competitive advantage,” he said. He added that technology further allowed shippers and transporters to analyse data and plan the best route based on previously unknown factors that could result in extra charges. “And currencies can be converted to rand-based costing which eliminates the guessing game around the charges,” Blackburn said. He pointed out that as Elon Musk of Tesla dreamed of unmanned trucks and rockets to the moon, TSI Central Station’s dream was to maximise current resources and allow technology to be the centre of it. “TSI has over the past twelve years developed an operational system that allows our clients to do exactly that,” said Blackburn.
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Technology allows shippers and transporters to analyse data and plan the best route based on previously unknown factors. – Clifford Blackburn
