I wonder if a transport company can survive and be profitable getting loads purely from online haulage exchanges. Does anyone use them to get loads? Which ones are good? I’ve also heard of “clearing houses” that supply loads, are they any good? How do I find them?
I want to start a transport company but the main problem (as always) is where to find customers. I’ve got everything else ready (capital to invest, CPC, etc) except a reliable and consistent source of loads. Perhaps anyone out there has the opposite problem and we could partner and help each other out… If you are a full time driver, no worries, I can do all the leg work.
Haulage exchange is only an online clearing house.
i have my own customers, don’t sub work out. Used haulage exchanges for a few months for back loads out of the continent and found it made more sense to bring them back empty. Rubbish rates, bad payment, better getting a vehicle and crew back to do some decent work.
As ever,own customer wins every time.
never used them myself but looking at the rates on offer, you can probably get more money per mile driving an old taxi than running at 44t. probably ok for back loads if it is going very close to your destination, but if they pratt you about for a few hours waiting to get loaded then it becomes a waste of time and effort.
You will have £1million by the end of the first year…If you start with £2million !
Crazy to even consider it as an idea.
What happened to the little diary with firms all over the place that you could ring for a load ?
peterm:
What happened to the little diary with firms all over the place that you could ring for a load ?
Those firms are no more, the pallet networks have seen to that 
Its all 3PL/4PL in the race to the bottom 
And, as for the OP…step away from the idea, its a crazy business model 
I’d agree with the above. I’ve looked at these sites, but I have never used one.
As a subbie my rates aren’t exactly fantastic, but I have seen near-identical movements to those I do every week for £400 being offered at £270 and rarely more than £350. It might pay your diesel home if you had your own top-dollar work to get back to but there is no way you could run a tractor unit exclusively on work from haulage exchanges.
Harry Monk:
I’d agree with the above. I’ve looked at these sites, but I have never used one.
As a subbie my rates aren’t exactly fantastic, but I have seen near-identical movements to those I do every week for £400 being offered at £270 and rarely more than £350. It might pay your diesel home if you had your own top-dollar work to get back to but there is no way you could run a tractor unit exclusively on work from haulage exchanges.
Exactly, as the work filters down thru the ‘work exchangers’ you at the end of the chain would be doing the job for peanuts.
raymundo:
Harry Monk:
I’d agree with the above. I’ve looked at these sites, but I have never used one.
As a subbie my rates aren’t exactly fantastic, but I have seen near-identical movements to those I do every week for £400 being offered at £270 and rarely more than £350. It might pay your diesel home if you had your own top-dollar work to get back to but there is no way you could run a tractor unit exclusively on work from haulage exchanges.
Exactly, as the work filters down thru the ‘work exchangers’ you at the end of the chain would be doing the job for peanuts.
But then the question is, does someone transport the loads advertised on haulage exchanges at those lower prices? And if so, how long before those who give your loads at higher prices will figure it out and start advertising on haulage exchanges for less than they are paying now? Isn’t it a fight against the tide then?
dimitri:
But then the question is, does someone transport the loads advertised on haulage exchanges at those lower prices? And if so, how long before those who give your loads at higher prices will figure it out and start advertising on haulage exchanges for less than they are paying now? Isn’t it a fight against the tide then?
Somebody will be doing it at those prices, yes. For example a Lithuanian haulier may take a load from Liverpool to London for £200 because he wants to get the truck back to Dover, and it pays the diesel. However, it only really works for non time-critical loads so for the time being I wouldn’t see it as a threat. The biggest threat to my business model will come when cabotage restrictions are completely removed, in fact that will kill off the entire British transport industry.
Another good reason for wanting out of the EU, among the hundreds of thousands of other ones !
raymundo:
Another good reason for wanting out of the EU, among the hundreds of thousands of other ones !
That’s unlikely to help even if the UK leaves the EU. Switzerland and Norway are not in the EU, but cabotage and EEA migration regulations are still exactly the same. It is unlikely that the UK decides to isolate itself from the EU more than those countries.
dimitri:
That’s unlikely to help even if the UK leaves the EU. Switzerland and Norway are not in the EU, but cabotage and EEA migration regulations are still exactly the same.
Incorrect.
Transport regulations
Inland and domestic transport (cabotage)
Inland transport within the Swiss customs territory is permitted only with vehicles that are registered in Switzerland and on which Swiss taxes and customs duties have been paid.
Consequently, foreign vehicles may carry goods only in cross-border traffic (imports and exports).
Link to Swiss Customs Administration’s site- ezv.admin.ch/zollinfo_firmen … ml?lang=en
Harry Monk:
The biggest threat to my business model will come when cabotage restrictions are completely removed, in fact that will kill off the entire British transport industry.
Look on the bright side if Turkey gets in it might take out the East Euro road transport industry too. 
dimitri:
raymundo:
Another good reason for wanting out of the EU, among the hundreds of thousands of other ones !
That’s unlikely to help even if the UK leaves the EU. Switzerland and Norway are not in the EU, but cabotage and EEA migration regulations are still exactly the same. It is unlikely that the UK decides to isolate itself from the EU more than those countries.
Feel free to explain why,as a non member,we’d need to provide the EU ( effectively East Euro and possibly Turkey in this case ) with a better deal in that regard than the US provides Mexico or Canada even as part of NAFTA.
Harry Monk:
Incorrect.
Transport regulations
Inland and domestic transport (cabotage)
Inland transport within the Swiss customs territory is permitted only with vehicles that are registered in Switzerland and on which Swiss taxes and customs duties have been paid.
Consequently, foreign vehicles may carry goods only in cross-border traffic (imports and exports).
Link to Swiss Customs Administration’s site- ezv.admin.ch/zollinfo_firmen … ml?lang=en
I agree, I missed that one. But I double checked Norway and they do allow cabotage under the same conditions as any other EU state. Migration regulations are also the same in Switzerland and Norway as in other EU states. Consequently, Swiss truckers aren’t allowed cabotage in EU states (link). I don’t think they are better off.
That’s all we need, how long before we start seeing this ? Vosa would have a field day 
Carryfast:
Look on the bright side if Turkey gets in it might take out the East Euro road transport industry too.
In all seriousness, it will. Nobody will pay a Romanian or Bulgarian £200 a week to drive a truck across Europe if a Turk will do it for £100.
The British continental transport industry has all but died now. Back in the day, 75% of the drivers on a Dover-Calais ferry would have been British, nowadays, as the few drivers who still do it will confirm, if you do go on a Dover-Calais ferry the odds are you will be not only the only British driver on it, but probably the only western European driver on it.
When cabotage restrictions are removed, as is the eu’s eventual aim- this would have happened two or three years ago were it not for protests by French and Dutch trades unions and industry trade bodies who secured a temporary stay of execution- British domestic haulage will go exactly the same way. The OP who, I understand, is about to set up his own transport company would do well to factor this into his business plans rather than just dismissing it as the wild fantasy of swivel-eyed racists.
Meanwhile, any British truck driver who still fancies having a job in five years time would do well to consider voting “out” in the upcoming referendum.
Carryfast:
Feel free to explain why,as a non member,we’d need to provide the EU ( effectively East Euro and possibly Turkey in this case ) with a better deal in that regard than the US provides Mexico or Canada even as part of NAFTA.
I’d say because the UK and EU are integrated much closer than the US/Mexico/Canada with NAFTA. So a more accurate comparison would be New York state and the rest of the US. Or California and the rest of the US. If, say New York or California decided to separate from the US.
dimitri:
Swiss truckers aren’t allowed cabotage in EU states (link). I don’t think they are better off.
Are you serious.Do you really think that the clearance operations would choose a Swiss operator when they can use an East Euro let alone Turkish.Assuming that French,German or Italian customers don’t choose their own.IE Swiss operators have the sense to not want the aggro bearing mind if they wanted to be part of the EU they’d have joined it before us.Everything else being appeasement of economic blackmail by the EU.In which case us being back with them in EFTA would be a game changer just it would have been if we’d have told traitor Heath to do one.