What a freight exchange is and how it works

What is a freight exchange?

A freight exchange is a marketplace where demand and supply for freight find each other. In this way, customers find transport for their goods and freight forwarders find customers.

The freight exchange and its role

Generic name: virtual market places;
Role: facilitating the communication of requests and offers for road freight transport;
Marketplaces have developed in road freight transport because of the very large number of road freight transport operators; the reason: it is the profession with the easiest access. There are no marketplaces for rail or shipping because of the small number of transport operators;

Specific terms for understanding the freight exchange

• Transport request = a load that needs to be transported; the request is made by the forwarding company or
  the trader;
• Transport offer = an available truck, or the actual offer made after consulting
  the transport request; the offer is made by the carrier or by the forwarding company that has the vehicles of subcontracted carriers at its disposal;
• Poster = the company that publishes a load (the transport request);
• Viewer (of the published load) = the party interested in making an offer;
• Liquidity of an exchange = the total of the loads published (with a view to identifying a transport solution).

Examples of freight exchanges

• Exchanges can be told apart by the territory in which they excel through the liquidity that posters offer to viewers:
  Timocom: an international German exchange – central and eastern EU, West Balkans (ex-Yugoslavia);
• Trans.EU: a regional Polish exchange – Poland, Germany, the Baltic States and the west of the former USSR, with a tendency to expand into south-eastern Europe;
• Teleroute: an international French exchange – western Europe, Italy;
• Wtransnet: a regional Spanish exchange – the Iberian Peninsula;
• Local and slightly regional exchanges: B2P – France, Transpobank – Italy, Speditor – Bulgaria, Cargo.LT – the Baltic States,
• Fuvarborse – Hungary, RaalTrans – the Czech Republic and Slovakia, BursaTransport – Romania;
• Romanian start-ups: Cargopedia, Euload, Evoload, etc.

How to find a carrier for your goods

• Searching for a truck declared as available;
• Publishing the load to be transported and, as a consequence, receiving offers from interested carriers;
• If no such offers, or only a few, are received, contacting all the carriers that have viewed the load to be transported;
• Searching the company register for a carrier with a vehicle suited to the goods to be transported, geolocated in the loading area or in the unloading area

Honexpres – complete solutions for domestic and international freight shipments

Whenever you are looking for a freight forwarder with experience in organising both domestic and international transport, Honexpres is the ideal solution.

We have complete transport solutions.

We also offer related services such as goods warehousing, etc.

We take care of the documentation from A to Z.

We organise the transport in detail and deliver your goods anywhere. For each transport we look for the shortest possible transit time and an advantageous rate; the delivery time and the rate are confirmed in the quotation.

Request a quotation for your transport and see for yourself!