Green long-distance commuters and driver hunger
What machines will truckers use ten years from now, when Europe has banned the production of internal combustion engines?
Electric cars are offered on the passenger car market, but they are not available for trucking, because the performance is too low – an electric truck could travel well over 200 kilometers on a single charge. Therefore, we can only wait for new technologies, but currently manufacturers offer Euro 7 class cars with extremely reduced emissions. To be honest, I don’t think there will be an electric truck in the next five years.
Hybrid technologies are not used in trucks?
No, truckers don’t use them. There are experiments with CNG natural gas, but even there the resource is small, so this solution is not popular for commercial transport. I know that here and there urban public transport uses this technology, but it is not really suitable for freight transport yet.
If indeed Europe will abandon the production of internal combustion engines after 2030, what will the freight carriers start?
This commitment applies to passenger cars and light commercial vehicles. It does not affect large cargo transport yet, because currently there are simply no technologies that could ensure cargo transportation. I also have a little doubt whether the commitment for 2030 will be able to be implemented – I think that a longer transition period might be needed.
Another acute problem of cargo carriers is the lack of drivers. What is the average age of drivers in your company?
I won’t say the exact average age, but it could be the same as the industry average – about 50 years. There are some who continue to work even after retirement age, there is also a very small number of young people, around 35-40 years old. There is no one in their twenties, but here you have to take into account that driving a truck requires some experience, so it is hardly possible to do it earlier than about 23 years old. However, we do not have any drivers in this age group.
Then the future looks bleak. Who will be behind the wheel in ten years?
We have no choice but to go to training institutions and try to promote the profession of truck driver. But it has its own charm – you can go to the Norwegian fjords or the Italian coast. On the other hand, it is clear that at some point a young person will want to start a family, have children, and then long European business trips may seem like a burden.
Didzis Mizis, the owner of the freight transport company “Miandum”. (Photo: Roy Maizitis)
The long absence is only one of the burdens – but there is also sleeping in the car and living on canned goods. Doesn’t sound too tempting…
It already is, but modern cars are designed so that the driver has as much comfort as possible: they have coffee machines, climate control even in parking mode, and a TV. I know that France is currently working on installing biotoilets in cars, so that the driver does not have problems when he gets stuck somewhere. But living in the cab is, of course, a driver’s everyday life.
It has been heard that due to the lack of personnel, at the moment the driver can afford to dictate the rules to a large extent, informing the employer that he will not sit in every car, and asking for a fully equipped car with all amenities…
It’s true. Often, the potential employee comes with his own terms, and then the employer has to think about how to provide the necessary level of comfort, which inevitably affects the price of the service. This is the situation, and the entrepreneur has to adapt to it. There are also other requirements, not only a new and modern car – also health insurance, bonuses not for excellent, but simply well done work. Some companies, for example, give the driver a bicycle on the trip so that he can see the surrounding area on his holidays.
But the driver shortage still exists? I heard that they used to hire Ukrainians and Belarusians, but now there are probably problems with that?
Citizens of Belarus and Russia are prohibited from entering us, so they cannot get work permits here. The situation with Ukrainians is different: before the war quite a lot of Ukrainians actually worked in Latvia and elsewhere in Europe, but now a large part of them have returned to Ukraine. It should be noted that now the Ukrainian transport companies themselves have benefits when working in the European Union, so I assume that some Ukrainian drivers are now working for Ukrainian companies.
Is it true that Latvian companies also use the services of drivers from distant and exotic countries?
Yes, there are drivers from the Philippines, also from India – Latvian companies are forced to recruit them due to the lack of employees. True, first they are trained so that these people can carry out safe transportation in Europe, because it is no secret that the driving culture in India is different from ours. The procedure for people from such countries to receive work permits is very complicated, therefore Latvian transport companies tend to use the services of Polish and Lithuanian recruitment companies – the rules are easier there, so it is easier to hire an employee from them. The bad thing is that in that case the taxes also remain in Poland or Lithuania, not in Latvia. Therefore, it would be important for Latvia to set the same conditions for work permits as in neighboring countries, otherwise we will inevitably fall behind.
The lack of drivers is not only a problem in Latvia – Great Britain and other countries have also faced it. Truck driving appears to be a dying profession. What can be changed here so that after ten years freight transportation does not stop? Introduce robotization? A few years ago, the automotive company MAN demonstrated a technology that allows the creation of truck trains, where the driver sits in the first car, and the second one follows the first one in autopilot mode…
Yes, I have heard about such experiments, but so far something like this is only possible on closed highway sections. It is possible that something like this could be possible in the future, but when and what prerequisites will be necessary for this – it is difficult to say for now. Because it should be taken into account that a truck is a much more dangerous object on the road than a car. If the prestige of the profession does not rise, then it will increasingly be taken over by citizens of third countries – so the solution for the near future will probably be migration.
Didzis Mizis, the owner of the freight transport company “Miandum”. (Photo: Roy Maizitis)
Back and forth
How much does a long-distance driver earn on average?
Working a normal work schedule with all scheduled holidays – between two and two and a half thousand euros after taxes. If the employee works only in Europe and does not regularly travel to Latvia, then he can be employed continuously for four weeks, but after that the driver must return to his home country for a monthly rest. A large number of companies work this way: the driver carries out transportation in Europe for several weeks, but then returns to Latvia for rest.
Does the car also have to return to Latvia?
The machine must be returned after every eight weeks. So the transport company has to buy plane tickets after four weeks to replace the drivers, or if there is a larger fleet, they send a minibus, replacing several drivers at once. These are of course additional costs and time consuming, but unfortunately that is the law.
Is it true that Germany “broke out” the law requiring trucks to return to their home country every eight weeks?
Yes, Germany, France, in the end Poland also joined, because it is relatively close to Central Europe and with the help of this law reduces the competition of Eastern European carriers. At the time when this law was drafted, there were still quite a few Ukrainian and Belarusian carriers working in Europe, practicing the policy of dumping prices, which the old European countries did not like. Our member of the European Parliament, Roberts Zile, fought hard against this law, and a coalition of seven opposing countries was even formed, but at the last moment, the Czech Republic tipped the scales in the opposite direction, which calculated that it is more profitable for them to reduce competition from Eastern Europe.
This law probably made a big dent for Latvian carriers?
Yes. For example, one of the largest carriers Kreiss was forced to create a structural unit in Poland, near the German border. This means that the cars are registered there and the taxes stay there too. As a result, Latvia’s economy is impoverished. With each such decision, unfortunately, we again lose a piece of our competitiveness.
Did you have to change the business model because of the war in Ukraine?
In the trucking industry, it is practically impossible to make any plans five years ahead, because the market is unstable and unpredictable. For example, the increase in fuel prices at the beginning of the war significantly increased costs – then we had to adjust the costs of services, which in turn the customers could not always afford, so for a while we were forced to cover the price increase at our own expense. Transportation to Belarus and Russia practically stopped, therefore those Latvian carriers operating in this direction were forced to reorient and dump in order to break into the European market. I know that some have ceased operations altogether and sold off their fleets.
Didzis Mizis, the owner of the freight transport company “Miandum”. (Photo: Roy Maizitis)
Find a parking space
How big is your company’s fleet?
100 units of equipment. They also include trailers. There are 85 employees, ten of whom work in the office, and the rest are drivers.
How many hours a day can a driver drive?
Nine hours – these are two 4.5 hour periods with a 45 minute break in between. All this is recorded in the computer system and can be checked.
So the driver is forced to plan ahead of time where he could stop, so that, God forbid, he doesn’t drive for an extra ten minutes?
Route planning is really not an easy task, but here the cargo coordinator comes to the driver’s aid, who not only searches for cargo, but also searches for a place to stay the car overnight or when the cargo has been delivered. If the driver is caught in a traffic jam and does not reach the rest area in time, a special form must be filled in, indicating the circumstances of the delay. This is a rather big problem throughout Europe, because the parking capacity does not correspond to the intensity of freight transport, so drivers often start looking for a place very early in the evening and may not use all working hours because they have to stop earlier. I assume that this is one of the reasons that scare potential drivers away from this profession.
How is cargo search and collection done?
The most common type is freight exchanges. The sender puts the cargo and the destination in it, and the carriers offer their price. Often, the shipper simply chooses the cheapest offer, but often also looks for a carrier with a certain reputation. And, of course, there are also permanent contracts with large companies, which require us to deliver a certain number of loads to a certain place every month. If for some reason we ourselves are short of machines, for example, one that is in repair, then we have to use the services of subcontractors.
Do you have a driver’s license of a category that allows you to drive a truck?
Yes, but only without a trailer. At the beginning of the company, I myself sat at the wheel of a delivery bus for a year and a half and drove at night.
And how did you get into the transportation business?
By quite a long way. At the beginning, I was engaged in the food product production business, also in clothing sales, while the logistics and freight transport company Miandum was founded by my parents in 1991 as a company for the production and processing of beekeeping products. However, it happened that a Scandinavian company bought a factory near the place in Ogre county where the company was located, which needed freight transportation. The Scandinavians approached us with an offer to carry out these transports. Since the business environment was quite unstable in the 1990s, it was important for them that the company had been around for a while and was not founded yesterday. That’s how I started doing transportation: at first I drove a bus myself, later the volumes increased and we were able to expand, growing from a local carrier to companies operating throughout Europe.
2023-09-11 02:02:00
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