road has become a lot tougher since the 1980s, when Schumpeter spent a year driving a battered old lorry with several tonnes of four-hooved cargo around the western United States. The cab was too cramped to sleep in. The radio only played. And sweat would drench his shirt as he swerved down roads like the “Grapevine”, north of Los Angeles, with the smell of burning brake pads in his nose. Yet it was as close to the idyllic, free-wheelin’ life as a young Brit could hope for.
Today trucking is once again caught in an epochal upheaval that is also reshaping the retail industry. The main cause is online shopping, which is reducing long-haul delivery of containers from port to Main Street, and speeding up that of smaller packages from warehouses operated by retailers like Amazon and Walmart in America to consumers’ doorsteps.
Change is clearest in the short-haul segment, most recognisable in the fleets of delivery vehicles operated by logistics giants such as, which have benefited from surging demand from locked-down shoppers, and increased profits despite the extra cost of door-to-door deliveries. Digitisation is helping improve efficiency, too. Uber Freight, the ride-hailing giant’s shipping arm, is developing a brokerage app to match carriers with shippers.
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