• A LOAD ON THE TELLY
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For your average small British haulier, looking for work on the Continent can be a daunting business; but Croner's Teleroute could reduce the language barrier and save a lot of wasted effort.
• For many small hauliers the advent of 1992, or to be pedantic January 1993 — for that is when the fully-liberalised and harmonised Single European Market is officially due to be in place — is, to paraphrase Clive Jenkins: As irrelevant as the blush on a dead man's cheek". It's not that they don't see the business opportunities offered by the SEM; it's simply that they do not have the knowledge, or resources, to take advantage of it Their argument, quite understandably, is that it's all very well for large companies like TNT, NFC and Transport Development Group to keep on about 1992: they have the resources to forge extensive pan-European contacts. If they want to link up with a foreign haulier, they can even buy one, simply to gain a foothold in Europe.
But what about the silent majority of small hauliers with one to five trucks, with no experience in international transport, no foreign language skills and, most important of all, no list of contacts on the other side of the channel that can provide them with work when the free-for-all of 1992, and especially cabotage, comes around? Exactly how do you break into the TIR game, if all you've ever done is domestic work?
INSTANT DATA BANK
The answer could be a video screen away, in the shape of a computer-based, international load-broking service called Teleroute, which can provide an instant data bank of contact throughout Europe.
Video-based load matching systems are, of course, not new. Plenty of UK companies have tried setting them up, including the Road Haulage Association, but few have succeeded. So why should Teleroute, operated in the UK by transport publishing company Croner, be any different? According to Croner's special projects manager Gill Sainsbury, the strength of Teleroute is that it is part of a much larger, pan-European international loadmatching network, rather than simply being a UK-based system purely handling domestic traffic.
The original Teleroute system was started up in France some five years ago following the decision by the PTT (the French equivalent of Telecom) to scrap its conventional phone-based directory enquiries system and put it all on a videotext network. It was not long after that, however, before other companies realised the potential of the videotext service for displaying more specialised material. "Once businesses started to see that all the major telephone users were being given videotext terminals by the PIT, entrepreneurs started to think 'well what can we supply on it?".
Among the companies looking at the system was the French services group Lamy, which decided to set up its own domestic load-matching system based on the videotext network, offering details on available freight and vehicles. Sainsbury explains: "It was originally set up as a domestic system. The rules and regulations within France just for transporting goods are really quite complex; there was a lot of documentation that needed to be filled in and the original intention was that much of that documentation could be handled on videotext, and it grew from that."
In spite of its obvious potential, not everyone rushed to Teleroute with open arms. The system met with resistance in its early stages — not least from freight forwarders, who were concerned that manufacturers would start using Teleroute to deal directly with hauliers, thereby cutting out the middleman. In the event, says Sainsbury, their fears were unjustified: "That's what they thought would happen, but in fact it didn't. Everybody found a use for it and we find the split between them is just the same."
Any early resistance to Teleroute "was very quickly overcome", says Sainsbury, and 80% of the French freight moving industry is now using the system.
The original Lamy teleroute system remained a domestic-only network until 1986 when the Wolters Kluwer group stepped in to develop an international network. Teleroute Belgium, Teleroute Holland and Teleroute UK followed shortly after. Germany will be added in the next few weeks. Italy and Spain will be next.
Teleroute UK is run by Croner, well known for its road transport reference material and operator handbooks, and in January last year Croner's Teleroute officially went live, using telephone links to the main French data base operated by Lamy.
INFORMATION
But how exactly does the Teleroute system operate and, more important, what information does it give you?
The basic Teleroute hardware package consists of a small videotext monitor, with a screen measuring 255x 230mm and weighing not much more than a bag of sugar. Attached to the monitor is a foldout keyboard which allows the user to either enter information on loads, or call up details on loads already within the system. The monitor is simply connected to a conventional power source and a dedicated phone line (in much the same way as a fax machine) and is ready to use.
If a haulier already has a suitable microcomputer with keyboard and a modem, he can subscribe to the Teleroute International system and gain access to the data without having to purchase the videotext monitor.
Before being able to enter the system, however, each subscriber must have his or her own password to prevent unauthorised use. As for the information held by the Lamy data bank, Croner's Teleroute can provide a haulier with details on available international loads from a large num ber of European countries, not just those directly operating a Teleroute system, along with available space on international vehicles, and even warehousing space. Loads are divided into different categories ranging from general haulage to temperature-controlled, tippers and tanker work.
Operating the Teleroute system is simple, with each command from the user based on a conventional menu which offers various alternatives for viewing or entering data. To start off, the user dials a local videotext telephone number and is connected via a telephone system known as Fastrak to the French data base.
After the password has been entered, the video screen displays a main menu with three basic options. The first allows the user to browse through the freight and vehicle offers on the international database. The second allows a user to place an advert for freight or a vehicle, while the third provides the opportunity to search for suitable storage or warehousing space, or make new distribution contacts.
SPECIFIC LOADS
The listings are operated on a timed basis with the latest entries in each category going to the top of the list. Each category is broken down into sub sections, allowing a user to look for specific loads from any major European country with each offer listing the weight of the load and its destination.
Once a user has narrowed down a likely looking cargo he can access all the remaining data concerning the shipper, which includes the name of the company and a contact, along with the telephone number allowing the user to call up and make a formal bid on the load.
If his bid is accepted he simply sends a truck to pick it up and take it to its ultimate destination.
The whole process of searching for a load and making a bid, assuming the right cargo is actually within the system, generally takes no longer than five minutes. But the real joy of using the Teleroute system, particularly for those domestic operators keen to break into TIR work but who do not have the necessary language skills or local knowledge, is that the most important information is already available for viewing on the screen in English.
According to Sainsbury, a British operator making a bid from Teleroute will invariably find that the contact listed speaks English anyway: "There's very little problem there. The major thing is that by the time he's ringing he knows what the load is, what the weight is, where it's to, where it's from. So he's ringing, quoting a Teleroute offer number which is the same in all languages, and making a bid for that particular load. There's very little communication that needs to go on, because so much of the information has already been divulged on the screen."
What won't be advertised on the screen, however, is what's been bid for any cargo and that, says Sainsbury, is at the request of the marketplace. Equally, under the operating rules of Teleroute, broking of loads, whereby a user bids for a load then sells it on, is prohibited.
Once a deal has been struck then it is the responsibility of the person who has put in the load to remove it. Equally, every 24 hours the system is purged of "dead loads" so users aren't forced to waste time enquiring about work that has already gone.
During the time that Commercial Motor watched the system being operated at Croner's head office in London there were some 66 offers of freight destined for the UK held within the system. Most were temperature-controlled and general haulage, with loads ranging from three to 24 tonnes. The most popular pickup points were in Belgium, Italy, France and Spain.
There is, however, a noticeable number of unusual loads to be found on the system. During our visit one of the offers was for 100 tonnes of cargo from Belgium requiring tippers. So far, the greater proportion of freight offers on Croner's Teleroute are for loads heading into the UK, rather than from it, although the number of offers vary from day to day. At the moment, UK operators gaining access to Teleroute data derived from the Continent are only shown details of international, rather than domestic work. But with the advent of the liberalised SEM in 1992, and cabotage, the potential for the system to grow is obvious. Indeed, Croner is already looking at setting up a domestic version of Teleroute, purely for internal load broking within the UK. "We're very keen to launch the national database — we've had a tremendous amount of support from the national hauliers," reports Sainsbury.
Everything has its price, and Teleroute is no exception. Operators wanting to join the network, but without a microcomputer, will have to buy the videotext monitor and keyboard for 2345 (ex-VAT) in addition to the 2200 first-year subscription fee, although this is reduced to 255 for the second year. Long-standing Croner customers, however, enter at the secondyear rate. There is also an initial 225 charge as a deposit against usage, and users are charged a fixed rate of 18p a minute for looking at offers, and 33p a minute for actually entering an offer. Not surprisingly, many subscribers, especially hauliers, prefer to look for an offer as it is not only cheaper but more proactive. Enter an offer on the system and you obviously have to wait until someone rings up with a bid. Every month, subscribers receive a bill from Croner for the previous month's use of the system and database.
Like any computer, the Teleroute system will only be as good as the information fed into it. Sainsbury says that for the moment the key person likely to benefit from Croner's Teleroute will obviously be an international, as opposed to a domestic, operator. "There obviously needs to be a fair split between freight moving companies and hauliers," explains Sainsbury. "If the freight isn't in the system, it won't attract hauliers. And if the hauliers aren't using the system, it won't attract the freighters.
So it's vital to us to have both sides of the industry."
For Sainsbury the present balance is right, with 60% of subscribers being hauliers and the remaining 40% being either forwarders or manufacturers: "When you take into account the number of international hauliers within the UK against the number of freight forwarders, it is a fair split. Teleroute is a pan-European system with well over 6,000 users now across Europe."
That is not a bad contact list for would-be international haulier thinking about 1992, and all he has to do is watch the telly.