Expanding Ontruck cuts more ‘empty’ kilometres
Freight transport platform Ontruck has announced exponential growth in the UK market, with month-on-month shipments utilising the system reportedly up 180 per cent from January to November 2018.
The Spanish-based company helps shippers contract freight services for palletised goods, and began its UK operations in 2017. Growth in monthly shipments has tripled since the first quarter of 2018, says the company, as UK shippers and hauliers continue to join the platform’s network – with Ontruck now moving an average of 5,100 tonnes in palletised goods monthly.
Shippers are said to benefit from rapid acceptance times, as 80 per cent of loads are accepted in under five minutes, and jobs accepted and completed using the platform perform at a success rate of 93 per cent.
To date, across the UK and Spain, Ontruck says it has saved truck drivers a total of €500,000 and over 350,000 litres in fuel. The platform is said to help smaller hauliers to grow as a business by providing a way for them to earn more money, optimise vehicle capacity and get paid faster, giving them the capabilities of a larger fleet.
Meanwhile, shippers have to date experienced cost savings of 20-25 per cent, says Ontruck, with the time between booking request and driver assignment measured in minutes rather than hours – as they choose from 2,200 trucks across three vehicle types: vans, rigid trucks and trailers.
Ontruck says its technology creates efficient routes by linking shipment orders together, and can reduce ‘empty’ kilometres to create efficiency gains through reduced manual work, human error, deadhead miles, idle time and improvements to driving time through GPS-assisted routing.
This benefits not only the carrier and the shipper, adds the firm, but alleviates pressure on infrastructure and reduces the environmental impact.
“We’re seeing very encouraging signals as we close the first full year of trading – not just in terms of top line growth, but also in underlying health metrics such as customer retention, order frequency and service levels,” said UK managing director of Ontruck, David Jennison.
“2019 is going to be an exciting year, and we are excited about continuing to deliver the triple bottom line benefit of lower costs for shippers and higher earnings for carriers to surpass our own 93 per cent success rate. We also take great pride in the environmental benefit of lower emissions and congestion that Ontruck has helped alleviate.”
Ontruck was shortlisted in the National Transport Awards 2018 under the category, ’Excellence in Technology’ and has attracted shipping clients including Procter & Gamble (PG.N), sporting goods retailer Decathlon and more than 400 mid-sized companies across Spain and Britain.
The firm has recently launched operations in France, its third European market, where more than 2,000 million tonnes of palletised goods are moved by road each year.
“After a year of successful operations in the United Kingdom, during which we were able to significantly grow and establish our foothold as a new and innovative player in the regional transport ecosystem on British roads, we were eager to continue to grow our European presence,” said Iñigo Juantegui, CEO and co-founder of the company.
“We are very excited with this new challenge and we hope to maintain the warm and welcoming reception that we have received during our first few weeks in Paris.”
Ontruck says it is already working with numerous local hauliers, and that it has been able to capture the interest of top-level companies as its first clients in France.
