Logistics and quarantine: what has changed and how has it affected trucking

Road cargo transportation has hardly changed during the quarantine, and the pandemic has not affected the sphere, especially compared to other areas of industry. Food, goods, medicines, most of the goods are still transported and transported, although the movement of people has become very limited. Nevertheless, some companies had to look for partners for transportation, as well as places of sale and methods of delivery of products.

How did the quarantine and new restrictions affect the sphere of cargo transportation?

It may seem that cargo transportation has remained full-fledged and everything is perfect, but this is not quite true. The companies that were engaged in the transportation of people suffered the most. Here we had to reduce the number of passengers by half, and therefore increase the cost, while retaining the remaining users. International transportation lost more than 40% of turnover, and domestic - from 25%. Inside the big cities, transportation dropped quite a bit.

The most critical situation with air transportation. The market has sharply decreased and, even after the conditional simplification of quarantine, the opportunity for passengers to fly, the bulk of passengers and the peak season in summer, has already been missed. Transportation by rail has been reduced to 20%, but here it is possible to restore the market relatively quickly when the transportation of agricultural cargo, metal and ore begins. But sea and river transport is gradually growing and its further development is expected. 

New restrictions in cargo transportation after quarantine

Of course, the demand for cargo and passenger transportation has decreased, but this is only part of the overall problem. Many companies and certain businesses have suffered significantly from the effects of coronavirus and quarantine.

At the beginning of May, more than 2 million employees of companies were unemployed or their salary decreased by half. Companies that have decided not to lay off part of the staff have found themselves in a different situation - sometimes an employee has a position, but there is not enough work and tasks to provide him with a full working day.

Every head of a logistics company fears that regulations or laws will be adopted that restrict the operation of the enterprise. Even now, the specifics of cargo transportation and the sphere do not allow making any forecasts. For drivers, there is always a risk of getting sick and there is already a shortage of qualified employees. It is necessary to be very careful about the increase in the cost of transportation services, because you can lose many customers, although at the same time a low price will be a loss. But the delivery and transportation service in the city will almost certainly grow and develop.