Digitalization in Freight Transport Services: Balkan Area

Abstract

New information technologies and international digitalization trends have led to the shifting of the norm in recent freight transport systems. Electronic marketplaces and digital freight transport platforms have emerged since the early 2000s’ as a result of the advances in information technology, plus Business to Business (B2B) and Business to Customer (B2C) hubs have developed new tools to facilitate product and information exchange and support the negotiation, contracting, and settlement processes. In particular, freight logistics platforms have been largely investigated and operated by numerous members of the global freight industry, especially in North America, Australia, and Europe, focusing on load and truck booking/auctioning, load matching algorithms, and freight planning services. This paper proposes a categorization and analysis scheme which (i) presents the latest state of practice in freight transport platforms at a global level and (ii) focuses on their offered services in an attempt to categorize these platforms based on the applied services. In addition, the freight exchange platforms adopted in the Balkan region are analyzed following the proposed scheme. A mapping process is achieved, and critical issues are identified in developing a transnational freight logistics platform for the Balkan area.