The future of vehicle logistics is here and it is granular

Since the invention of the automobile, the efficiency of car production has steadily increased. More than 50 million new cars are now delivered worldwide every year by ship, rail and truck. The challenge in vehicle logistics has always been to transport more vehicles in large quantities to dealers worldwide.

While this remains a challenge, the rise of Car-as-a-Service subscription models is creating a new problem in vehicle logistics: how to organise the transport of individual vehicles in a fleet of thousands.

Depending on the business model, this can involve a city, a country or the whole of Europe. Instead of simple vehicle delivery from OEMs to large collection points, Car-as-a-Service models need to cover multiple touch points within the average life cycle of a vehicle.

At the beginning, vehicles need to be "floated in" and delivered to the end customer within the territory. During the product lifecycle, the vehicles may be loaded/fuelled, washed or repaired before they are finally "floated out" again.

This creates significantly more workload and thus increases the pressure on Car-as-a-Service companies to provide effective and efficient vehicle logistics. Customer expectations are high, with a focus on ease of use and speed in an increasingly "on-demand" economy.

The real challenge for logistics partners in the coming decade will not be solving the mass transport problem, but logistics at a granular level. The crucial questions to be answered are how to transport cars faster, more reliably and cheaper on the last mile to the customer.

This topic of "last mile logistics" will become even more prominent as customers expect more and more on-demand services, and faster than ever before.

At ONLOGIST, we are specialists in intelligent logistic solutions for single-vehicle transports. We have spent years looking at how to address this issue and have identified several key factors that Car-as-a-Service companies need to consider when looking at solving the last mile problem.

Sourcing reliable drivers is one of the biggest challenges for companies looking to organise individual vehicle transports. For large companies, hired drivers may be an option. However, this must be calculated with high expenses and costs. Another option are companies and tradesmen who specialise in individual vehicle transport.

With logistics of this magnitude, there is little room for error. Hundreds of individual vehicles must be transferred directly to the end customer every day. This requires a solution that simply creates driving orders according to the specifications and automatically assigns them to the right driver.

For growing Car-as-a-Service companies, it is important to have all the necessary accounting information in one place. This helps accounting teams stay organised and reduces the risk of information getting lost between different systems.

Even with the best planning and logistics providers in place, it is essential for companies to think about how they will manage claims when they occur. In such situations, it is crucial to act quickly to provide the best service to the end customer and ensure that the money is paid out by the insurance company as quickly as possible. When deciding which system your business should use, it is important to consider how quickly compensation for claims can be claimed and how this will affect cash flow.

On ONLOGIST, our customers have access to thousands of qualified logistics service providers. With this network, it is possible for our customers' vehicles to be delivered to the end customer with the shortest possible lead time.

In addition, all ONLOGIST customers can set up different accesses for their employees. For example, accounting teams have access to the ONLOGIST portal with a dedicated view of financial information and invoices, while the claims team only gets access to the claims tool. Admins, on the other hand, get access to the entire software and can view everything from reporting to controlling reports to have the full picture.

For our clients who prefer to use their own software, APIs are also available to seamlessly integrate with their system to allow easy information exchange without having to actively use the ONLOGIST platform.

Furthermore, ONLOGIST provides you with a dedicated claims tool that allows for easy processing of claims. All important documents can easily be uploaded to our platform and are sent directly to the insurance company, which then pays the claims within 2 weeks.

Would you like to learn more about ONLOGIST? You can easily contact us. We will be happy to advise you on your individual needs and offer you the opportunity to test our platform.