Trucking industries across the world ubiquitously suffer from fragmentation within their markets, which has complicated efforts to ensure end-to-end visibility across logistics operations. In Turkey, one of the largest markets around Europe and the Middle East, the story is no different.
Roughly 95% of all trucks in the Turkish market belong to individual owners. With 92% of all freight moved inland being on the highways, the Turkish market contends with inefficiencies that can be reduced with better visibility into available capacity and volume.
Istanbul-based startup TIRPORT is solving that by building the country’s largest digital freight marketplace. Aside from providing a real-time and location-based digital platform, TIRPORT allows companies to manage, report and track the overall hauling process.
The startup recently introduced TIRPORT SSL, a tool that allows load owners to provide their end customers — the load receivers — to follow the end-to-end transport logistics in real time. Hakan Özçubukçu, co-founder of TIRPORT, explained that this was a game-changer in the Turkish trucking market, which is riddled with information opacity between load owners and receivers.
“Most of the individual drivers are not tracked by any vehicle tracking systems in Turkey, making most of the hauls untraceable,” said Özçubukçu. “Due to this, there is intense telephone traffic around back offices, trying to learn the stage of transportation and inform related parties.”
The conventional process of calling and emailing concerned stakeholders is exhausting and highly manual. The logistics forwarder calls up the driver asking for the load’s whereabouts but cannot be entirely certain of the truth. If routes lie across areas with low signal coverage, getting drivers on the phone might be a hassle. Ideally, with enough information on the load, the forwarder would call up the load owner with the details, who in turn connects with the load receiver on the estimated time of arrival (ETA).
By automating these processes, TIRPORT saves stakeholders capital and human resources. The company also digitalizes documentation that is required for the load haul, helping load owners and receivers to upload documents and verify information at the click of a button.
“Through the SSL link, customers can instantly access the vehicle’s location and see the stage of transportation. The ETA data can be used to make necessary preparations for unloading,” said Emre Capoglu, a business development specialist at TIRPORT. “The waybill and the contents are displayed digitally, thus preventing problems like faulty or incomplete delivery.”
TIRPORT also brought out its own debit card that works alongside its payment system. Özçubukçu explained that the Turkish trucking industry relied heavily on cash transactions, leading to higher operational costs that are also loaded with risk. With such cards, fleets can ensure that the cards only work for drivers matched to specific trucks, easing the process of transactions. For instance, these cards can be used in fuel stations and restaurants, with the back office getting a complete list of the transactions in real time.
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