Market Monday: A rocky start to the week for European Trucking
Week 9 - Direct effects of the PL/DE border blockage visible, but no major impact expected
Newspapers and channels are overflowing with reports of Polish farmers blocking a major border (A12/E30) between Germany and Poland, south of Frankfurt (Oder).
This impacts a crucial route that Polish and Eastern European carriers typically use for their Sunday night / Monday morning tour towards Central and Western Europe.
Border crossing status
Source: Transporeon Realtime Visibility, Map with current data: https://live.sixfold.com
We carried out a quick analysis to see if this blockage is causing issues on this corridor, which is crucial for the capacity within Europe. This corridor is significant as many trucks head west from their home countries at the start of the week to provide transportation services in Western European countries in the following days and weeks.
The following analysis compares three important borders between Poland and Germany, with Slubice to Güldendorf as the blocked one. Therefore, current data is missing for this border, as trucks have started to avoid it.
Waiting times across selected boarders
Source: Transporeon Realtime Visibility
Especially the border from Jaglowice to Klein Bademeusel, south of the blocked border, is experiencing heavy traffic and significantly longer waiting times above the norm. This is impacting the estimated arrival times of individual transports and is likely causing disruptions to loading and unloading schedules, creating a hectic start to the week for transport professionals.
However, the overall impact on the European trucking market and the supply of capacity for Western European countries is expected to be limited. February typically has the highest available capacity within the year, which should help mitigate these issues, and it's unlikely this situation will cause disruptions across Europe.
On the other hand the map shows also that the north-south axis is affected by disturbances. Especially Switzerland and the Brenner route is still dealing with the aftermath of heavy snowfall over the weekend. Meteorologist are still predicting more snowfall in the coming days, which will contribute to the current disruptions.
This leaves the question of how many additional disturbances the market can absorb…
Christian Dolderer
Lead Research Analyst
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