August 2026: The Outlook Is Improving. The Pressure Isn’t.

Section 01Export confidence jumps, while capacity, cash flow, cross-border rules and carrier risk keep European freight under pressure.

August ended on a considerably more optimistic note than it began. German business confidence improved, exporters reported their strongest expectations in more than four years and several industrial sectors are looking more positively at the months ahead. That is good news for a transport market that has spent much of the past year waiting for a broader economic recovery.

The interesting part is what this recovery may be returning to. Road freight capacity already feels tight. Operating costs have pushed freight rates higher, even before stronger demand became a major factor. Low water on the Rhine exposed how little spare capacity exists when large volumes suddenly have to move between transport modes. Payment terms are getting longer, driver shortages remain structural and cross-border operators continue to navigate a growing mix of border controls, cabotage enforcement and immigration rules.

So August was not simply another difficult month for logistics. It may have marked the beginning of a more complicated phase: an improving economic outlook meeting a transport system that already has very little slack.

Here is what shaped European road freight in August.

Section 021. Low water exposed how little spare capacity the system actually has

The Rhine became one of the defining logistics stories of August after water levels fell to exceptional lows. At the critical Kaub gauge, levels dropped below 10 centimetres in the middle of the month, severely limiting the amount of cargo vessels could carry and increasing transport costs along one of Europe's most important industrial waterways.

The response quickly spread beyond inland shipping. Several German states temporarily relaxed Sunday and holiday driving restrictions for trucks connected to the low-water situation, while federal and state authorities introduced additional measures to make alternative road transport easier. The idea was straightforward:

Rail freight was able to provide some additional flexibility. DB Cargo announced that around 400 additional freight wagons could be mobilised at short notice for affected customers. At the same time, the company made clear that suitable alternatives still depend on the commodity, route, infrastructure and resources available. In other words, switching modes is possible, but only where real spare capacity exists.

The pressure on Germany's logistics infrastructure was made more visible when around 5,000 workers took part in 24-hour warning strikes at the ports of Hamburg, Bremen, Bremerhaven, Wilhelmshaven, Brake and Emden on 18 August. Cargo handling was delayed at several locations. The strikes were unrelated to the Rhine situation, but the timing illustrated how quickly resilience becomes more difficult when different parts of the transport network come under pressure simultaneously.

The lesson is not that Germany ran out of transport options. It did not. It is that resilience depends on considerably more than having another mode available on paper. When waterways lose capacity, rail can only absorb what its infrastructure and equipment allow, while road freight still depends on available vehicles, drivers and legal operating hours. August was therefore a useful reminder that spare capacity itself has become a strategic asset.

Sources & Further Reading:

Section 032. The outlook improved just as freight capacity stayed tight

The economic picture became considerably more encouraging towards the end of August.

The ifo Business Climate Index rose from 86.7 points in July to 88.8 points in August, with companies reporting greater satisfaction with their current situation as well as significantly better expectations. Uncertainty also declined.

The export numbers were even more striking. German ifo Export Expectations jumped from -2.8 points in July to +9.6 points in August, the highest level since February 2022 and the strongest monthly improvement since June 2020. The institute reported particularly strong expectations for exports into other EU markets, while manufacturers of electrical equipment, electronics, optical products and automobiles also became notably more optimistic.

That is an important shift because much of the pressure in road freight so far has not been caused by a classic demand boom.

The Q2 European Road Freight Rate Benchmark from IRU, Upply and Transport Intelligence showed contract rates rising to 148 index points, up 7.9 points quarter-on-quarter and 15.2 points year-on-year. Spot rates climbed even faster to 146.8 points. According to the report, both markets were moving higher primarily because of costs rather than demand.

The latest ELVIS market report reaches a similar conclusion for Germany. Truck mileage and utilisation are high, but ELVIS explicitly warns against reading those figures as evidence of a transport boom. Industrial activity remains comparatively subdued, while limited available freight capacity and driver shortages are keeping utilisation high. The organisation is already advising companies to secure capacity ahead of the autumn business period.

There is also an efficiency problem inside the capacity that does exist.

The SCI Logistics Barometer found that only 33% of respondents now experience average loading-ramp waiting times of 30 minutes or less, compared with 52% in 2025. Meanwhile, the share reporting waits between 30 and 90 minutes increased from 36% to 62%. This makes the August outlook particularly interesting. Freight rates have already increased in a market where costs and restricted capacity were the dominant factors. If the sharp improvement in export expectations now translates into stronger physical freight volumes, demand could begin adding pressure to a system that is already operating with limited reserves.

For the autumn, the question may therefore no longer be when demand returns. It may be what happens to capacity when it does.

Sources & Further Reading:

Section 043. Longer payment terms are moving more financial pressure down the chain

A recovery in freight demand would be welcome, but it arrives while another form of pressure is becoming increasingly visible: working capital. Creditreform found that the average payment term granted by German companies increased to 32.21 days in the first half of 2026, the highest level since 2019. That is 0.75 days longer than during the same period last year and more than two days longer than in 2023. The difference between company sizes is particularly notable.

Businesses with more than 250 employees received payment terms of more than 35 days on average, while smaller companies generally had to pay considerably earlier. Logistics was among the sectors in which payment terms increased particularly strongly.

For transport companies, this can create a difficult mismatch. Customers gain more time to settle invoices, while wages, tolls, fuel, financing and insurance still have to be paid on schedule.

The result is that part of the liquidity burden moves further down the supply chain.

That becomes more relevant when viewed alongside the insolvency figures discussed in this month's Focus (read below).

A carrier can be established, experienced and operationally reliable while still facing substantially more financial pressure than its customer may realise.

Sources & Further Reading:

Section 054. Electric and autonomous trucking continued moving towards real operations

While August exposed several weaknesses in today's transport network, it also produced a number of signals about what the next version of that network could look like. MAN started series production of its first eTGX and eTGS electric trucks equipped with the Megawatt Charging System. The first vehicles are being delivered to customers across nine European countries, and the system is designed to make significantly faster charging practical for heavy-duty road transport.

Autonomous freight also took another step towards commercial application. DAF, Einride and Dutch research organisation TNO announced a collaboration aimed at integrating Einride's autonomous driving technology into DAF's electric truck platform. The work is focused on SAE Level 4 automation, under which the vehicle can perform the complete driving task independently within defined operating conditions.

Digitalisation is happening further upstream as well. WirtschaftsWoche profiled Cargoboard at the end of August, highlighting how the company has turned pallet freight booking into a largely digital process and built a network that now handles around 50,000 loads per month. It is another example of logistics becoming increasingly platform-based even before automation reaches the driver's seat.

Taken together, these developments show that digitalisation in transport is no longer limited to better TMS systems or electronic paperwork. It is increasingly changing the booking process, the energy system behind the truck and the way the transport itself is executed.

Sources & Further Reading:

Section 065. Germany is making driver qualification easier, while Europe is still missing around half a million drivers

Germany introduced several changes to professional-driver qualification in August, including additional examination languages and shorter practical exams.

The theoretical examination for accelerated basic qualification can now be taken in nine foreign languages. The practical examination for the regular basic qualification has also been reduced from 210 to 120 minutes. The measures are intended to make qualification more accessible and reduce unnecessary barriers, particularly for drivers recruited internationally.

The scale of the underlying shortage explains why relatively technical changes to qualification matter.

IRU's latest Global Driver Shortage Report estimates that Europe has around 502,000 unfilled truck-driver positions, equivalent to approximately 13% of the required workforce. Around 20% of Europe's current driver workforce is expected to retire within the next five years, and roughly two thirds of surveyed European operators say they have already had to turn down business because they could not find enough drivers.

The industry is not simply trying to recruit a few more drivers at the margin. Driver availability has become a structural capacity constraint.

The regulatory challenge is therefore to make access to the profession easier without reducing the standards required to operate safely and compliantly across European borders.

Sources & Further Reading:

Section 076. Cross-border capacity is becoming as much a regulatory question as an operational one

August also showed how much European road capacity depends on rules that have little to do with the physical availability of trucks.

BALM prohibited a Polish road-haulage company from performing cabotage operations in Germany for one year after repeated serious infringements. The case demonstrates that, even in a capacity-constrained market, authorities are prepared to remove operators from domestic cabotage where compliance repeatedly fails.

At the same time, continued controls at the German-Polish border are creating additional operational friction. The IHK Ostbrandenburg has warned that congestion at checkpoints is making journey times harder to predict and increasing costs for freight forwarders and transport companies.

An even larger cross-border issue emerged from the Western Balkans towards the end of August.

Transport operators from Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina and North Macedonia have announced plans to block road freight crossings with the EU from 14 September 2026 unless a solution is found to the application of the Schengen 90/180-day rule to professional truck drivers. Albanian associations may also participate.

The dispute centres on the fact that non-EU nationals can generally remain in the Schengen area for no more than 90 days within any 180-day period. For Western Balkan truck drivers performing regular international transport, working days spent inside Schengen count towards that limit. More systematic recording through the EU Entry/Exit System has brought the issue into sharper focus.

The consequences could be significant if the blockade goes ahead. Western Balkan carriers provide important capacity into and through the EU, and a coordinated restriction of freight crossings would affect far more than the countries directly involved.

The broader issue is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore. Europe needs international drivers and flexible cross-border capacity, but that capacity is simultaneously shaped by immigration rules, border controls, cabotage law and enforcement.

For freight forwarders, access to capacity is therefore becoming inseparable from understanding whether the carrier and the people performing the transport are actually able to operate compliantly on the required route.

Sources & Further Reading:

Section 08FOCUS I Europe’s Carrier Vetting Emergency

A record bankruptcy wave meets a compliance deadline nobody was ready for.

At the same time when Europe's freight outlook is beginning to improve, the companies providing the capacity are facing a very different set of pressures.

The EU transportation and storage bankruptcy index reached 259.5 in the second quarter of 2026, the highest level since Eurostat began tracking the series in 2015.

11.4% vs 21%

Bankruptcy declarations increased

compared with the year earlier

Belgium provides one of the clearest examples.

What should matter particularly to freight forwarders is the profile of those companies. According to ITLB, 58% of the businesses that failed had already been operating for more than five years.

These were not exclusively newly established operators without a track record. Many were precisely the kind of companies that could look familiar and dependable based on previous business relationships. That does not make historical experience irrelevant. It does mean that a carrier's history cannot automatically be treated as evidence of its current financial position.

The situation is also far from uniform across Europe. In England and Wales, road freight and removal insolvencies between January and July were around 13% lower than during the same period in 2025. Across the EU, however, several transport markets recorded sharp increases in bankruptcy declarations.

Freight forwarders managing international subcontractor networks are therefore not dealing with one European carrier market moving in one direction. They are operating across countries with increasingly different economic conditions and risk profiles.

The compliance environment changed at the same time

Another major change entered into force on 1 July. Key EU Mobility Package requirements now apply to light commercial vehicles between 2.5 and 3.5 tonnes when they are used in cross-border transport. Depending on the operation, these vehicles are now subject to tachograph requirements, EU driving and rest-time rules and rules concerning the posting of drivers.

The principle itself is not particularly surprising. International commercial road transport should be subject to comparable social and compliance standards even when the vehicle falls below traditional heavy-truck weight classes.

The level of preparation, however, was much more concerning. An IRU survey found that only 27.7% of affected operators considered themselves ready for the deadline, while 46.5% said they were not yet prepared. At the time of the survey, 88% of the affected fleet still required a tachograph retrofit.

That means two developments are happening at once. Established transport businesses are disappearing from parts of the European market at unusually high rates, while another transport segment has entered a considerably more demanding compliance regime.

For forwarders assigning loads, the information that matters is therefore becoming increasingly time-sensitive.

A company may still exist while its financial position has changed substantially. Insurance can expire, company management can change, employees can leave and documents require renewal. A subcontractor that was compliant when it entered the network may now operate under requirements that did not exist at the time of onboarding.

Fraud adds another financial risk

Official insolvency data naturally focuses on factors such as costs, wages, tolls and economic conditions. Fraud does not normally appear as a separate reason for a transport company's financial distress. Yet individual fraud losses can have exactly that effect.

German transport insurance broker FSA24 documented a case in March 2026 involving a mid-sized freight forwarder that assigned consumer electronics worth more than €1 million to what appeared to be a legitimate Eastern European carrier sourced through a freight exchange.

According to the broker's case study, the licence, insurance documentation and other presented credentials were fabricated. The cargo was collected and disappeared. The forwarder's own insurance subsequently reduced the claim because its subcontractor-selection process was considered insufficient, leaving the company in a severely weakened financial position.

Another case that reached the Higher Regional Court of Düsseldorf involved more than €1.8 million worth of cigarettes lost to a fake Czech subcontractor. Although insurance coverage existed, the court still allowed a 30% reduction for gross negligence in the selection of the subcontractor.

For an industry operating on narrow margins, a six-figure uninsured loss is not simply an unpleasant claims event. It can threaten the business itself.

Carrier vetting can no longer stop at onboarding

For years, carrier vetting was often treated as a relatively static process. A company was checked when the relationship began, licence and insurance documents were collected, the information was stored and the carrier remained approved until the next scheduled review.

The problem is not that the original check was meaningless. The problem is that the facts behind it can change.

What freight forwarders increasingly need is therefore not proof that a carrier was checked at some point in the past. They need a sufficiently current picture at the moment the transport decision is made.

That means being able to establish whether the company identity still matches independent sources, whether relevant licence and insurance information remains current, whether meaningful company or financial signals have changed and whether the person acting for the carrier can actually be linked to that business and is authorised to represent it.

Where driver verification is relevant, the same principle applies to the identity of the driver and the professional documentation linked to that person.

This does not mean rebuilding every due-diligence process from zero before every transport. Quite the opposite. Reliable verification becomes more useful when it can be reused, provided the information behind it does not simply remain frozen at the date of onboarding.

“The more useful question for carrier management in 2026 is therefore no longer simply “Have we checked this company before?” It is “Is what we know about this company still true today?””

Sources & Further Reading:

Section 09PRODUCT UPDATE

From checking a carrier to building a reusable trusted network

The market developments above are also why we are building Trusted Carrier as more than a one-time carrier check.

Operational reality means freight forwarders will always need to work with new companies. A regular subcontractor cancels, a customer opens a new lane or additional spot capacity is needed at short notice. A trusted network therefore cannot mean that companies are restricted to carriers that have already joined it.

With Trusted Carrier, companies can verify an external carrier whenever they need to.

Depending on the required level of verification, this can start with email and domain authenticity and extend to company identity, official register data, transport licence, insurance and financial information, authorised representatives, drivers and relevant professional documents.

At the same time, carriers can complete their verification and become part of the Trusted Carrier network. This allows verified information to be reused in future relationships instead of every forwarder and shipper starting the same process from zero.

The important point is that

Relevant company data and expiry-sensitive information are kept current and monitored rather than being treated as a check that happened once during onboarding.

The result is a model that works for both sides of daily dispatch: companies can verify a carrier outside the network whenever they need new capacity, while trusted relationships inside the network become easier to reuse.

Verified once. Trusted everywhere.

Learn more about Trusted Carrier

Section 10AUGUST AT TRUSTED CARRIER

Our story made the cover of TAPA EMEA’s Vigilant

August ended with a milestone we were particularly proud of. Our article “Fraud: Fintech learned the hard way. Will logistics learn the lesson?” was featured in the latest issue of TAPA EMEA's Vigilant magazine.

In the article, our founder Karlheinz Toni draws on more than two decades of experience in banking and fintech to examine what logistics can learn from industries that were forced to rethink identity verification after fraud became too sophisticated and too expensive to manage through manual checks alone.

The timing could hardly be more relevant. In the 18 months to 30 June 2026, the TAPA Intelligence System recorded more than €1 billion in reported freight-theft losses across Europe, the Middle East and Africa

That figure is based on financial data supplied for only 7.8% of the 58,661 reported cargo-crime incidents during the period, meaning the value of more than 92% of incidents remains unknown.

The August Vigilant issue added another snapshot, with 1,077 freight crimes reported across 53 countries in July and known losses exceeding €22.4 million.

The numbers reinforce the point behind the article:

TAPA EMEA: Read the August 2026 Vigilant issue

Connect & Protect in Weeze

On 27 August, we also joined Connect & Protect 2026 at the Training Base Weeze, organised by VSW Nord together with VSW Hessen-Rheinland-Pfalz-Saarland.

The event brought security professionals and business representatives together around current issues in corporate and information security. For us, the discussions were another reminder that physical and digital security are becoming increasingly difficult to separate.

Logistics companies may invest heavily in physical cargo protection while still remaining exposed if company identities, communications or authorised contacts are manipulated.

Connect & Protect 2026: Event information

Section 11Welcome to the network, SWOBITRUCK

Another milestone came from the carrier side of the network when SWOBITRUCK GmbH publicly announced its Trusted Carrier status.

That is an important part of what we want Trusted Carrier to become. Verification should not only help freight forwarders understand their subcontractors. Reliable carriers should also benefit from being able to demonstrate that their company and the people representing it have been independently verified.

As the network grows, carriers should not need to prove the same basic identity from scratch to every new customer, while forwarders and shippers gain access to partners whose relevant verification data can be reused and kept current.

We are very happy to have SWOBITRUCK in the network. 💚

SWOBITRUCK on LinkedIn

Section 12WHERE TO MEET US NEXT

Trimble Insight Europe 2026 | Brussels | 22–23 September

In September, we will be in Brussels for Trimble Insight Europe 2026, formerly known as the Transporeon Summit.

The event will bring more than 900 logistics professionals together at The EGG, including shippers, carriers, freight forwarders, LSPs and technology providers.

This year's agenda focuses heavily on AI, connected transportation, resilient supply chains and the technologies changing transport procurement and execution.

That makes it a particularly relevant place for the carrier-trust conversation. As sourcing capacity and assigning transports become faster and more digital, companies also need reliable ways to establish which business and which person is actually behind the interaction.

If you are attending as well, come and say hello. We are looking forward to seeing customers, partners and many new faces from across the European logistics community in Brussels. Trimble Insight Europe 2026

Section 13Verify when you need to. Reuse trust when you can.

Whether you are checking a carrier for a new spot load, reviewing an existing subcontractor or building a network of transport partners you want to continue working with, the information behind that decision should reflect the company you are dealing with today.

Because good carrier management should not mean checking more for the sake of checking.

It should mean knowing who you are working with when it matters.

Verified once. Trusted everywhere.

Your Trusted Carrier team 💚

Explore Trusted Carrier

August 2026: The Outlook Is Improving. The Pressure Isn’t.

Section 01Export confidence jumps, while capacity, cash flow, cross-border rules and carrier risk keep European freight under pressure.

Section 021. Low water exposed how little spare capacity the system actually has

Section 032. The outlook improved just as freight capacity stayed tight

Section 043. Longer payment terms are moving more financial pressure down the chain

Section 054. Electric and autonomous trucking continued moving towards real operations

Section 065. Germany is making driver qualification easier, while Europe is still missing around half a million drivers

Section 076. Cross-border capacity is becoming as much a regulatory question as an operational one

Section 08FOCUS I Europe’s Carrier Vetting Emergency

A record bankruptcy wave meets a compliance deadline nobody was ready for.

The compliance environment changed at the same time

Fraud adds another financial risk

Carrier vetting can no longer stop at onboarding

What freight forwarders increasingly need is therefore not proof that a carrier was checked at some point in the past. They need a sufficiently current picture at the moment the transport decision is made.

Section 09PRODUCT UPDATE

From checking a carrier to building a reusable trusted network

Verified once. Trusted everywhere.

Section 10AUGUST AT TRUSTED CARRIER

Our story made the cover of TAPA EMEA’s Vigilant

Connect & Protect in Weeze

Logistics companies may invest heavily in physical cargo protection while still remaining exposed if company identities, communications or authorised contacts are manipulated.

Section 11Welcome to the network, SWOBITRUCK

Section 12WHERE TO MEET US NEXT

Trimble Insight Europe 2026 | Brussels | 22–23 September

Section 13Verify when you need to. Reuse trust when you can.

Europe’s Carrier Vetting Emergency

Logistics is where fintech was in 2012