With 12.48 million shipments (up 2.3 per cent) and a turnover of EUR 1.42 billion (up 2.9 per cent), the CargoLine general cargo cooperative successfully ended the 2018 financial year. The main growth driver was national transport (up 2.5 per cent).
The shipment volume within Europe increased by 1.7 per cent. Accordingly, the partners increased the number of direct services (up 2.6 per cent) and those of their employees (up 4.4 per cent). Twelve per cent of all shipments were made for online shops.
“We can look back on an exciting year 2018. On the one hand, the sustained good economic situation meant more shipments for us. On the other hand, challenges such as severe shipment fluctuations, cargo shortage and driver shortage were all the more felt. We managed to tackle these issues only because we set the right course at an early stage,” says Jörn Peter Struck, Chairman of the CargoLine Management Board.
Among other things, the cooperative has introduced a tool to control overhangs in order to smooth out shipment peaks with the delivering CargoLine partners. A seasonal surcharge, which Verbund has levied on particularly strained routes, also helped to control shipment volumes.
In case of capacity shortages, the partners were able to use vehicles and employees of the taskforce concept. In addition, vehicles and drivers were contractually bound to CargoLine to ease the situation.
In mid-2018, the new modular IT architecture of the cooperation was launched, which means farewell to a single provider for all central applications. “The fundamental restructuring of our IT enables us to flexibly cover customer requirements in terms of scope and speed of information in the short term and with the best provider per application.
For example, we are currently building our Cepra tracking platform to the customer portal, including document management and freight price calculation. Furthermore, we increase the transparency in the delivery process by determining estimated arrival times and proactive incident management,” says Jörn Peter Struck.
To optimise and stabilise shipment processing, Verbund has recently consolidated its network. Since the beginning of 2019, the transport and logistics service providers Schmelz in Kassel and Rüdinger in Krautheim have been part of the network. Rhenus has also been a shareholder of CargoLine since 1 January 2019 and is represented in the cooperation with its sites in Duisburg, Mönchengladbach and Unna.
Facts and
figures (approx.; as of December 31, 2018), in parentheses, the change from the
previous year in per cent
Shipments within the network (outgoing only): 12.48 million (+ 2.3)
– nationally: 9.51 million (+ 2.5)
– of which European land transport: 2.97 million (+ 1.7) Sales in euros: 1.42
billion (+ 2.9)
Total
number of franchisees: 48
– of which shareholders: 14
Employees:
7,650 (+ 4.4)
– of which trainees: 870 (+ 0.9)
Number of
daily direct services throughout Europe: 1,645 (+ 2.6)
– of which national: 1,365 (+ 2.6)
– of which cross-border: 280 (+ 2.6)
CargoLine GmbH & Co. KG, headquartered in Frankfurt am Main, stands as a cooperation for standardised and systematic general cargo traffic in Germany and Europe. Founded in 1993, 45 medium-sized system partners form the nationwide networktoday, which is supplemented by high-performance international partners.
