Transport companies: what transformations is the Ukrainian market experiencing?

What problems do Ukrainian cargo carriers face in 2022?

Immediately after the start of the war, cargo transportation was reoriented to the delivery of critical goods, humanitarian and military supplies, and products necessary for strategic enterprises. The volumes of goods transported from European countries to Ukraine by road and rail have increased many times. At the same time, transporting goods by sea and air has become almost impossible. Every transport company that continues to operate in a full-scale war is faced with the following problems:

• The need to develop new logistics routes, taking into account current conditions;
• Operation under extreme loads;
• Shortage of vehicles, especially for the transportation of oversized, especially heavy and dangerous cargo;
• Lack of qualified drivers;
• Fuel problems;
• Huge queues at border checkpoints;
• The delivery of commercial cargo in the first months of the war was practically zero;
• The need to constantly adapt to a rapidly changing situation.

All this allowed the transport industry to take a qualitative step forward and improve the delivery of any cargo to Ukraine, throughout the country and abroad.

What changes are taking place in the field of logistics on the Ukrainian market?

Many foreign cargo carriers refuse to deliver goods to Ukraine due to fighting in many regions and constant missile attacks. Therefore, they were replaced by Ukrainian drivers. This was facilitated by a number of laws adopted by the Ukrainian government and additional quotas for 2023 for freight transportation by road and simplification of customs procedures and much more.

It should be noted that the Ukrainian transport services market, even in such difficult times, continues to actively develop and follow the path of optimizing logistics in the country. At the moment, the most important tasks in this direction are:

• Development of warehouse infrastructure;
• Renewal and modernization of the vehicle fleet;
• Accelerated development of river transport;
• Development of new routes and interaction schemes;
• Resolving personnel issues and training specialized specialists;
• Prompt implementation of advanced technologies and innovative solutions;
• Simplification of internal inspections and processes for issuing accompanying documents - primarily this applies to the agro-industrial sector, in particular with the certification of phytosanitary and veterinary services.

An important event was the decision of the European Commission to include Ukrainian logistics routes in the indicative maps of the TEN-T network. This was another important strategic step towards Ukraine’s integration into the European Union. First of all, innovations will contribute to the implementation of the “Paths of Solidarity” project. This initiative is aimed at developing the export of Ukrainian agricultural products and delivering humanitarian aid to the country. 

The adoption of these changes will make it possible in the near future to attract financial resources from European investors to modernize and improve the logistics infrastructure of Ukraine, as well as eliminate existing obstacles in cargo transportation, reduce transportation costs and more actively develop multimodal schemes for the delivery of goods. All this should ultimately lead to improved quality of services when transporting goods. Therefore, we can state the fact that the Ukrainian cargo transportation market currently has sufficient potential and good opportunities to continue to actively develop, solve the most complex problems and increase supply volumes, both within the country and abroad.