TRANSPORT Management 126

Everyone is talking about it. We applied it in our profession, especially in the editorial department, and more specifically in this editorial department. What are we actually talking about? Artificial intelligence, of course.

This piece was written by ChatGPT, based on the following briefing: “Describe in 180 words what the challenges are for road transport in Belgium?”

The transport sector in Belgium, which represents approximately 80% of freight transport, is facing a major turning point. With more than 60,000 companies, mainly SMEs, this sector is facing crucial challenges.

Companies are being held back by the shortage of drivers, with around 5,000 vacancies (+15% in one year). More than 30% of drivers are over 50, which is increasing the shortage, despite training for newcomers. Environmental regulations are also increasing: by 2025, 25% of the truck fleet will be subject to low emission zones, forcing companies to invest in green fleets. These cost 50% more than diesel vehicles.

Digitalisation, applied by 40% of companies, optimises efficiency, but also requires major investments. The amount of these investments corresponds to 10 to 15% of annual turnover. Finally, traffic jams, with which we are at the top in Europe, accounted for a cost of 20 million euros in 2022.

These challenges are the ultimate proof that managers must ensure that the energy transition, technological modernisation and logistics optimisation go hand in hand to ensure the competitiveness of road transport in Belgium.

We take our hats off to this commendable effort: an extremely complex problem was mapped out in very few words. However, it is a very academic analysis and the figures used sometimes come close, but in other cases are completely off.

We can immediately unravel two clear blunders: there are approximately 11,500 transport companies in Belgium, and certainly not 60,000. The percentage of trucks that will have to deal with a low emission zone is a lot lower than 25%. The additional costs for zero-emission vehicles are considerably more than 50%.

One thing is for sure: TransportMedia has no immediate plans to replace journalists with IA!