From Beijing to Brussels, the entire IRU global team have visited road transport operator facilities as part of their joint 2024 kick-off meeting, exploring opportunities and challenges facing the industry.
Kicking off 2024 with a special planning meeting, all IRU staff around the world have toured companies to experience firsthand the complexities and daily challenges of road transport operations, reinforcing one of IRU’s four core staff values: industry knowledge.
The planning day began with a virtual meeting joining all IRU offices from around the world, followed by each office team visiting local companies to better understand the industry they represent. The goal of the day was achieved: IRU staff saw for themselves the daily challenges facing all transport players, reinforcing their personal relationships with them.
Here is a taste of some of the visits.
Beijing
The Beijing team visited IRU member CEVA Logistics to explore the latest developments in east-west transport and connectivity.
With 1,000 facilities in over 170 countries, CEVA Logistics offers supply chain solutions to large and medium-size national and multinational companies across the globe.
IRU Beijing was given a tour of CEVA Logistics’ premises, getting a glimpse into their daily activities and the innovative methods they use to optimise transport operations in Asia and beyond, including how they have pioneered many new TIR routes from China.
Istanbul
In Istanbul, IRU staff visited Hilal Trans and discussed the challenges in the road transport industry with Şerafettin Aras, company owner and President of IRU member UND.
Hilal Trans has over 500 trucks and several major warehouses. It’s the first TIR holder to use TIR under the Authorised Consignor status in Türkiye.
A key challenge facing Hilal Trans is difficulties obtaining driver visas and insufficient road permit quotas. Şerafettin Aras also stressed the damage incurred due to long border waiting times and driver shortage issues faced by the Turkish road transport industry.
Geneva
In Geneva, the IRU headquarters team set off in a double-decker coach to visit Camion Transport, a member company of IRU member ASTAG and a leading operator with 600 trucks, 1,500 staff and logistics facilities across Switzerland.
With Camion Transport beginning to use battery-electric trucks, the IRU staff explored the charging infrastructure and technical challenges in transitioning to carbon neutrality. Visiting the enormous warehouse facilities also gave a vivid insight into the complexity of running multiple road and intermodal transport operations, as well as hiring, training and motivating staff.
The IRU team then headed down the road to the main heavy vehicle testing and training centre for western Switzerland, jointly run by motoring association Touring Club Suisse and ASTAG.
Here, all staff drove with accompanied professional drivers in a range of heavy vehicles around the test track, explored specialist trucks firsthand with their drivers, learnt more about how ASTAG represents the industry at a national level, and saw practical demonstrations of safe loading and unloading of different types of cargo.
Brussels
The Brussels team visited IRU member Jan de Rijk Logistics’ warehouse and operation centre in Roosendaal, the Netherlands, just across the Belgian border.
With a fleet of over 1,000 trucks, offices across Europe and a combined warehouse capacity of more than 130,000 metre square, Jan de Rijk Logistics is a leading supplier of European transport and distribution services and associated contract logistics.
Jan de Rijk’s team presented the company’s history, activities and unique portfolio, including aerospace transport, in-house forwarding services, final-mile distribution and automotive transport.
The IRU team toured the warehouse and offices and discussed the innovative methods used by the company, such as a state-of-the-art piece picking robot, the AutoStore system.
With EU legislation and regulations at the heart of IRU’s advocacy work in Brussels, the teams also discussed how Jan de Rijk is implementing recent rules, such as the smart tachograph version 2, and planning to meet EU decarbonisation targets.
