LIMBA ENGLEZĂ APLICATĂ ÎN

MANAGEMENT

Merchandise transport logistics - Merchandise

transport by road

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 Summary
Logistic services include a variety of activities. Of these, the transport has a significant
weight both as a presence and especially in terms of costs. The options of a transport company are
numerous, but different as implications: to have their own means of transport, to rent, to resort to
specialized companies, to choose a certain mode of transport, etc. All of these must be analyzed in
a specific context, as template solutions cannot be given beforehand.
Methods of transport
Transport can be defined as the activity by which the goods are moved on different
distances between different points. The main modes of transport are: road, naval (by water), rail,
air and pipeline.
Road transport is a flexible mode of transport in terms of route and operating period. The
goods can be delivered directly to the customers' premises or to a place designated by them. The
means of road transport are efficient for the short distance movement of high value goods. Among
the disadvantages of road transport, it can be mentioned that restrictions on customs controls (for
international transport) can be time consuming. Also, long distances and the need for water
crossings reduce the attractiveness for road transport. In addition, in some parts of the globe,
especially in poorly developed countries, road infrastructure is poor.
Naval transport (by water) is a very inexpensive mode of transportation for moving goods
in bulk, of small or non-perishable unit value products (for example, coal and crude oil). Shipping
is slow and may be weather dependent (for example, some ports are covered in ice in winter).
Usually, shipping is used in combination with other modes of transport to be able to deliver goods
from door to door.
Rail transport is a good way of transporting goods in bulk over long distances. The
increasing use of containerized transport systems provides a flexible means of using rail transport,
with minimal time and cost of freight per freight.
Pipeline transport requires a high initial investment for pipeline construction, but is a way
to achieve a low marginal cost for the transportation of fluids and chemicals. The transportation of
oil and natural gas is usually associated with pipeline transport.
Air transport is considerably more expensive per ton / km than any other mode of transport,
but is much faster. It is preferable especially for moving perishable products, high value ones and
in small quantities (eg diamonds, softwares, natural flowers, etc.). We are currently witnessing a
trend of expanding the air transport market by promoting its services, which are based on the
concept of full cost of distribution. Thus, higher transportation costs can be offset by reducing
other costs (packing, insurance, etc.). In addition, the development of larger and more flexible
aircraft has reduced costs.
The choice of transport modes takes into account a number of criteria, namely: speed of
travel, frequency of travel, safety during transport, capacity of the means of transport, availability
of the means of transport, cost of transport, specificity of the goods, etc. Of course, not all these
criteria can be met simultaneously by a single mode of transport and therefore, an optimization
will be sought between several criteria that better correspond to the transport needs of a company.
This is because the decision regarding the choice of transport mode is of particular importance.
Some authors argue that out of the total cost of the physical distribution the cost of transportation
represents about 37%.

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 An increasingly common trend in transport is the expansion of combined or multimodal
transport. Combined transport involves the use of at least two modes of transport and can be of the
following type:
- piggyback - combines road and rail transport;
- fishyback - combines road and naval transport;
- trainship - combines rail and naval transport;
- airtruck - combines road and air transport.
Although each of these combinations offers certain advantages to the carrier, the use of the
piggyback system is more widespread, being cheaper than the exclusive use of auto transport,
flexible, comfortable, less harmful to the environment and contributes to reducing the degree of
road congestion.
Difficulties in expanding the piggyback system are due to problems with rail transport.
These problems are related to the conflicts of interests between the railway companies belonging
to different countries, as well as the preponderance of public property over these companies.
Therefore, in the field of rail transport, in general and in Europe, in particular, there is a need to
reform that will allow private railway companies to compete with those in the public sector, as
well as the emergence of a rail transport authority for a region comprising several countries (for
example, for the whole European Union). This authority is needed to avoid technical differences
between countries, to eliminate network bottlenecks, to coordinate the interests of members.
Of these modes of transport, the largest extension and use is the road transport, due in
particular to its flexibility. This flexibility of road transport can be seen from the perspective of
the variable size and capacity of vehicles, the possibility of temperature control during the
movement of goods, the characteristics of handling products (by using internal transport
equipment), eliminating multiple manipulations of the loaded products (road transport can be used
from the "door" of the supplier to that of the buyer). As such, in the following we will refer to road
transport.
General characteristics of road freight
The strong domination of the use of road transport in logistics activities and its ease of
operation, however, have their own problems. There are two groups of problems that can lead to
difficulties in road transport, namely travel and driving restrictions.
The category of travel restrictions includes:
1. the legislation that may limit the weight allowed for a motor vehicle on certain streets or
the length of time a driver is allowed to drive;
2. fixing periods of the day when the products can be delivered or access can be made in
the delivery areas. In such situations, there is a limitation of the periods in which a point of sale
can be supplied, which leads to the need to find alternative delivery routes. In the situation of the
limited periods of delivery of the goods (for example, the delivery is allowed only in certain hours
or time intervals) there are corresponding implications on the quantities of goods stored and on the
needs of replenishment;
3. congestion of road traffic within the localities, which determines the occurrence of
problems related to the frequency and the security of the deliveries of goods to the points of sale,
correspondingly increasing the costs of distribution;
4. the ecological implications, due to the reaction of the pressure groups to the problems
determined by the car traffic (pollution, increase of fuel consumption, noise, disturbances of vision,
etc.).
The problems of managing the car park include:

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 - the structure (composition) of the car park, given the immense variety of vehicles that are
available for use in road transport. The structure of the car park must take into account the nature
of the products to be transported, the auxiliary means necessary for handling, the way of using the
vehicles, etc., as all of these involve costs. There are products, such as fragile, frozen or chilled
ones that require specialized vehicles for transport. There are also commercial units (such as
supermarkets) that require the supply of products at a variety of temperatures, which determines
the presence of appropriate vehicles to transport these products. One solution to this problem was
the creation of multi-temperature vehicles, which can improve the flexibility of the means of
transport, but at a certain cost. Similar difficulties arise in handling the products inside and outside
the vehicle, with the proper use of its space, etc .;
- making decisions regarding the financing of the purchase of vehicles from the car park.
In general, there can be three ways to purchase vehicles, namely the purchase, lease and lease. The
decision for one of these three modes and the multiple variants within each one will depend on the
specific situation of each economic agent;
- the efficient functioning of the car park. Efficient operation involves operating costs,
whose control and measurement raise problems. Strict control and supervision of the vehicle and
driver's activity, as well as compliance with the legislative requirements, are crucial in carrying
out any delivery operation.
In order to improve the efficiency of the car park, computer systems are used, which have
applications in the programming of vehicles and the design of their itineraries. It is appreciated
that such a computer system contains 3 main parts:
a) a data file about the beneficiaries of the transport and about the constraints related to the
delivery to them, which is linked in the computer to a computerized road network;
b) a part of automatic routing of the transports that generates the routes and the loads;
c) an interactive facility that allows the manual execution of the programs to be eliminated.
The benefits of introducing a computer system include a better use of the vehicle, offering
higher levels of delivery service to the beneficiaries, reducing transport costs and capital
investment in vehicles, using the computer system as an incentive tool. The consignors of goods
are natural or legal persons who entrust the carriers with the task of moving a freight over a certain
distance, at a point previously agreed upon. After the field of activity, the legal entities senders are
mainly in industry and distribution.
Freight forwarders have a number of transport-related goals, including:
- cost reduction;
- reducing the delivery and production deadlines;
- diminishing stocks;
- improving the services offered to customers;
- the flexibility of the logistics service in order to better respond to the needs of customers.
These objectives also represent constraints that have led to developments such as the
development of just-in-time production. This system requires a reduction of stocks at all levels of
production. The attempt to minimize stocks compels industrial firms to focus on their core
competence and to outsource for those activities where their competitiveness is low. This is the
case, in particular, for the transport activity, where the flow of flows on the internal level of the
enterprise is not possible, except for large companies.
The application of the exact system in time leads to a reorganization of the transport. In
fact, just in time determines the multiplication of shipments, thus creating vehicles * km and
therefore intense traffic. This system leads to an increase in orders and a reduction in their unit
volume, leading to an increase in the costs of preparing orders and transport, but decreases the
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costs with storage, which in the end can allow a financial gain for sender, because the cost of
financial assets related to storage is higher than the costs of preparing the orders and the overheads
with the transport.
Therefore, these developments also favor the explosion of the messaging sector, which has
developed considerably over the last few years.
In general, shippers must be able to respond to increasingly demanding customers. This
application is characterized by:
- the search for the best value for money;
- more flexibility and reliability (under cost and price constraints);
- shortening waiting times;
- increasing the number of references of each product;
- an increasingly variable demand regarding the volume of products to be supplied.
As a result, there are distribution constraints imposed on both shippers and products. In
addition, the nature of the products, the type of distribution network used, the geographical
coverage of the market and the constraints of the customers require a specific logistics
organization.
For distributors, the trends observed are, in general, quite close to those of industrial
enterprises:
- optimization of own networks;
- optimizing the preparation of orders.
These trends are consequently found in the implementation of logistics platforms. The main
criteria for choosing the implantations are economic in terms of the purpose of the investment.
The various constraints to which the shippers are subjected have led to the modification of
the logistical vision. From an expensive sector and without a real possibility of added value,
logistics has become one of the key sectors of industrial and distribution processes.
Today, logistics is appearing more and more as a sector where it is possible to achieve
significant economies of scale, which allows to obtain competitive advantages, especially in terms
of costs and profits.
The growing outsourcing of some of the logistics activities by some shippers, combined
with the search for reductions in storage costs, has led to the emergence of global contracts, which
integrate transport and logistics operations. Which facilitated the emergence of new actors and the
market for logistics benefits.

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