The brutal answer is that it is not, and understanding why matters enormously for anyone managing freight procurement and strategic supply chain decisions right now.

This is the third article in our series tracking the diverging capacity trajectories of the US and European road freight markets. The first established the structural split: Europe tightening steadily for years while the US remained in a prolonged capacity surplus. The Week 15 update confirmed the US had reached a three-year capacity low and that Europe’s downward trend was accelerating. Both of those diagnoses remain intact. Read the respective analysis here:

The US: A Pre-Buy, Not a Recovery

The surge in US Class 8 orders is real, but its cause matters. The primary driver is not a sudden boom in freight demand or carrier confidence — it is a regulatory deadline. The EPA’s 2027 NOx emissions standards are set to take effect next year, and fleets likely front-load purchases of compliant diesel trucks before the cost of compliance drives up prices. FTR reported that February 2026 saw 47,200 units ordered, the highest single month since September 2022. June came in 241% above June 2025.

These are extraordinary numbers. However, they need interpretation. It’s unlikely that most of these trucks will enter the market in 2026. In the meantime, the structural capacity tightening that began in late 2025 continues. Contracted load rejections (tender rejection rates) have currently reached their highest levels since 2022, confirming this trend.

Europe: A Replacement Cycle, Not Fleet Growth

The European picture is similarly nuanced, but misses the extraordinary numbers narrative. The Q1 2026 registration uptick of 10.7% is welcome after EU heavy truck registrations fell 6.2% last year in continuation of the structural decline trend started in 2024. But the recovery, given its low levels, is replacement demand, not fleet expansion. Carriers are replacing worn-out assets or ordering final batches of dimmed-out diesel trucks rather than adding net capacity to the market.

The Structural Correction Is Not Reversible in the Short Term

In both markets, the core dynamic is the same: years of underinvestment in fleet, accelerated by carrier exits and margin compression amid economic turbulences, have created a supply deficit that cannot be resolved by a few quarters of stronger orders. The capacity trendlines are likely to continue their downward trajectory over the next few months.

In the US, even if every truck ordered in 2026 enters service on schedule, the market is just replacing attrition and aging assets before it adds net capacity. The critical threshold will not be crossed by one or two months of strong orders, but only by sustained order volumes above the five-year average, maintained long enough to offset years of fleet underinvestment. That bar has not yet been cleared on a structural basis, even if the headline numbers look impressive. The EPA pre-buy is just distorting the signal.

Forward Outlook

For Europe, the trajectory is clear: capacity will remain structurally tight through the remainder of 2026, with typical seasonal crunches adding further pressure. Any meaningful relief would require sustained registration growth above replacement levels for multiple consecutive quarters and a steady flow of new drivers — a scenario that is rather unlikely in the current macroeconomic environment and amid recent reports of a steady increase in the average age of the workforce.

For the US, the structural tightening is real and will persist as well through 2026. The order surge provides a credible path to capacity normalization — but in 2027, not 2026 and only if orders remain high and above the 5-year average for at least the rest of 2026. Market actors who interpret the order headlines as near-term capacity relief are likely to be caught short.

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Christian Dolderer
Principal Domain Expert
Trimble Transportation (Transporeon)

The UK Road Freight Market: Consolidating Under Pressure

UK diesel prices surged 33% between February and April - from £1.41 to £1.87 per litre - before partially retreating to £1.75 in June, and domestic spot rates tracked this in real time. Contract rates moved more slowly, as most haulage agreements include a diesel floater clause with a one-to-three-month lag, meaning the March shock is just finishing being incorporated into contracted pricing.

The one lane where the increase handily beats expectations beyond the fuel story is UK to Germany, where contract rates rose 17% over H1, the only GB-origin corridor to post double-digit growth. Fuel amplifies on a >1,000 km haul, but the real culprit is demand: rejection rates on this lane rose through spring, signaling that carriers now wield some pricing power on a corridor traditionally deprived of significant demand. Worth watching separately: From GB to France or to the Benelux area, contract rates increased but at lower adjustment levels despite high rejection rates, suggesting a correction there is also possible.

But the headline number for UK road freight is not a rate figure. It is carrier bankruptcies: more than 2,000 haulage companies entered insolvency between 2021 and 2025, nearly double the total of the preceding five-year period. That is roughly eight operators exiting the market every week for four consecutive years. A 2025 sector analysis found that 36.8% of UK transport and storage companies held absolutely no cash reserves, the lowest of any UK industry. A further 39% of operators sat in a high-failure-risk zone, with a combined working capital shortfall across the sector of £706 million. In 2026 these trends are only expected to accelerate.

These are not the businesses with room to absorb shocks of the Strait of Hormuz closure. As UK diesel prices climbed up, we saw a spike in haulage insolvencies. The cashflow mechanics are brutal: fuel bills arrive weekly, customer invoices settle in 30 to 90 days, and the gap in between is where businesses fail.

What is emerging from this attrition is a two-speed market. At the top, consolidation is accelerating. The operators being squeezed out are the smaller and regional players, businesses without the capital to invest in technology, sustainability credentials, or the scale to absorb cost shocks. The grim reality is that even as the fuel prices drop, the sector’s contraction is far from finished.

A Border System Contributing Toward Crisis

A development that deserves close attention in the summer is the EU’s Entry/Exit System. Launched in October 2025 for coaches and freight vehicles, and progressively enforced from April 2026, EES requires biometric registration for non-EU nationals, including British citizens, entering the Schengen area. Because French border controls operate on the UK side of the Channel, those checks happen at Dover and Folkestone before departure.

The May bank holiday offered the first serious stress test. The Port of Dover declared a critical incident as peak wait times hit four and a half hours. France invoked an emergency clause to temporarily suspend the extra biometric registration step, but the underlying problem of insufficient processing throughput for peak volumes was not resolved. In early July, the Port’s Chief Executive warned of another imminent critical incident as summer tourism peaks. Port’s prediction shows holiday traffic heading for France could face queues spilling out of the port and onto the M20 for miles, influencing freight movement as collateral damage. While lorries do not share the same lanes as tourist traffic, they share the same approach infrastructure and surrounding road network. When that network seizes, the knock-on effects for freight scheduling are significant. What makes the outlook particularly uncertain is that the worst may still be ahead: as of early July 2026, most cross-Channel tourist cars at Dover were still being processed manually due to technical issues. Full biometric enrollment for all passenger groups has not yet been activated and could be switched on with little notice, adding a further layer of first-registration delay to an already strained system.

Whether the summer passes without a major freight disruption event, or whether a sustained critical incident forces a rethink of routing and scheduling across the Channel, is genuinely hard to call. What is clear is that carriers were already advised to build significant buffer times into cross-Channel schedules and consider congested departures during peak holiday weeks. For just-in-time supply chains, that advice is worth taking seriously rather than waiting to react.

Ireland: A Smaller Market, A Sharper Crisis

If the UK is navigating a structural reckoning, Ireland is in the middle of one. The fuel crisis hit Irish operators with force, as soaring diesel prices triggered nationwide protests, as slow-moving truck and tractor convoys brought the Dublin traffic to a standstill. The government’s Diesel Rebate Scheme and the new Road Transporters Support Scheme have provided carriers with an emergency liquidity buffer and reduced fuel excise tax until the end of July. Whether that support continues beyond remains an important near-term variable for sector stability.

But the most strategically significant development in the Irish market is geographic. The UK Landbridge, which was historically the fastest route from Ireland to continental Europe, has seen lorry traffic fall 30% since Brexit, as direct Ro-Ro services between Ireland and the EU have doubled. In June 2026, a new year-round service emerged, connecting Cork directly to Boulogne-sur-Mer with six weekly sailings, a 22-hour crossing designed around driver rest periods. Dublin Port expects direct-to-continent volume to grow for decades, highlighting a continuous post-Brexit traffic adjustment.

The EES dynamic adds another layer to this shift. Every additional hour of friction at the Short Straits makes the direct maritime bypass more attractive relative to the Landbridge. If the summer of 2026 delivers the kind of disruption the Port of Dover is warning about, it may accelerate the structural rerouting of Irish freight away from the UK corridor faster than any commercial calculation alone would have done.

What to Watch

Both markets are feeling the same forces: fuel volatility, driver shortage, and the ongoing reconfiguration of post-Brexit trade architecture. The UK/EU SPS agreement, targeted for mid-2027 implementation, will ease agrifood flows meaningfully - the UK government estimates a £5.1 billion annual economic benefit - but dynamic alignment with EU rules introduces its own compliance risks, and broader industrial freight friction remains largely unchanged.

The operators who survive this period will be fewer, larger, and more selective. For shippers with exposure to either market, all of this will mean that securing capacity and long-term relationships with logistics partners in Britain and Ireland will become a priority in the long-term.

Oleksandr Kulish
Senior Consultant
Trimble Transportation (Transporeon)

Then you look at Germany’s toll mileage data. And the picture gets more complicated, or others would say economic reality stepped in.

The Driven Distance Index — another demand indicator we developed, which measures total distance covered by heavy-duty trucks relative to the 12-month rolling average, based on Transporeon Visibility Hub data — reached approximately 108-109 in May 2026, its highest reading of the year and above the equivalent month in every prior year tracked. This is a meaningful signal: trucks across Europe are covering more ground than their historical average. Combined with the Demand Index surge, it would be tempting to declare a broad-based recovery underway.

But the toll mileage data for Germany introduces a crucial contrast. The overall German toll mileage index for 2026 is significantly below the 2021/22 (booming economy) average and, throughout the year, even below the 2023-2025 (dampening economy) average. Although May flipped above the 2023-2025 average and shows improvement or even the beginning of a structural change, it remained significantly below the 2021/22 benchmark of 108 for the same month.

The cross-border toll mileage index for Germany tells a meaningfully different story. This index measures the tolled mileage on all border sections (in&out), hence it provides activity indications for transit, import and export movements. The cross-border tolled mileage in 2026 has tracked much closer to — and in May even above — the 2021 and 2022 average, indicating a booming environment compared to the 2023-2025 period. The divergence between the two series is the article’s central signal: Germany as a transit or import country is performing closer to historical norms, while Germany as a freight-generating economy is underperforming.

This distinction matters enormously for how we interpret the Demand and the Driven Distance Index’s signals and implications for the European transport market. European trucks are covering record distances in May 2026 — but this activity is happening elsewhere in Europe and not within the German domestic market.

European demand is genuinely recovering — the May Demand Index of 111.4 is not a statistical artefact, and sectors like packaging, FMCG, and paper are all running well above their 36-month averages. This analysis aligns with industrial production data and shows that Germany’s manufacturing sector is not yet contributing to European growth, while other economies are.

The cross-border toll mileage and Driven Distance Indices further indicate ongoing network changes across Europe, including the deindustrialization of Central-Western Europe. These structural movements and Germany’s unclear future industrial contribution will impact demand and, derived from it, the capacity availability. Should the trend continue, both transportation demand and capacity will decline in Germany, making the market more consolidated and less stable. Alternatively, in the long term, if the government implements measures to support German manufacturing, the effect could be the opposite. Somewhat paradoxically, only economic growth and increased transport demand will reduce capacity constraints in Germany. This uncertainty is adding another layer of headache to the strategic planning of transport-, logistics- and supply chain procurement professionals.

Christian Dolderer
Principal Domain Expert
Trimble Transportation (Transporeon)

At the time, the level sat around 120 to 125 cm, and the worst-case scenarios still felt like a distant, but possible outcome. Eight weeks later, the situation has not improved; it has steadily deteriorated.

As of today, June 22, 2026, the Kaub gauge reads roughly 106 cm, having drifted down from a temporary high of about 140 cm in late May. This means water levels are lower now, in June, than they were during the late-April spring drop. Crucially, this decline is occurring during the period when the river is historically much stronger.

For a quick refresher: Kaub gauging station measures the shallowest chokepoint on the Middle Rhine. It sets the maximum draft, and therefore the maximum cargo weight, for barges shuttling between the ARA deep-sea ports and the industrial hinterland of Germany and France and is used by many inland river carriers to set rate surcharges and cargo restrictions.

The long-term annual baseline average at Kaub is 208 cm. In a normal June, fed by Alpine melt and spring rains, the gauge typically runs well above 300 cm. A June reading near 100 cm indicates the river is already running a massive deficit at the start of its traditional low-water season (August to October). The reservoir of winter snowmelt that usually carries the Rhine through the summer is thin, and the hottest, highest-evaporation weeks of the year are still ahead.

The Forecast Flips From “Unlikely” to a Primary Risk

In April, the one stabilizing factor was that a level low enough to effectively halt efficient barge traffic at the Equivalent Water Level (GlW) reference of 77 cm carried less than a 5% probability over the forecast horizon.

That safety margin has been evaporated along with the H₂O. The probabilistic 14-day forecast issued by the German Federal Institute of Hydrology (BfG) this morning shows the following water level probabilities:

• Below 117 cm: Remaining below this threshold is now a near-certainty (100%) for the next ten days.

• Below 97 cm: The probability of dropping past this severe draft restriction level climbs to 85% by June 30. At these levels, barges can carry 30-60% of their usual maximum cargo load in tons.

• The 77 cm Tipping Point: The critical line where barging stops making economic sense now carries a 20% to 27% probability by the first days of July.

A one-in-four chance of approaching a commercial shipping halt before the real heat of summer begins is a metric that supply chain planning cannot afford to ignore.

Historical Precedents and the Weather Outlook

Reviewing the historical gauge records at Kaub highlights two recent summers that frame our current range of outcomes:

• 2022 (The Crisis Case): That year ran a June monthly mean of 147 cm, then collapsed to a July mean of 100 cm and an August mean of just 66 cm. This triggered vertical freight surcharges and forced barges to stop or sail only a third full.

• 2023 (The Reprieve): A similar June (152 cm) eased into the 120s through the summer before autumn rains bailed the network out, avoiding a capacity crisis.

The challenge in 2026 is that our June daily averages are already running between 103 cm and 108 cm, which is lower than both benchmark years at the same point in the calendar. While a low June does not guarantee a supply chain disaster, it means we are entering the danger season from a highly vulnerable base.

The seasonal weather guidance offers little reassurance. With a strong El Niño developing, the ECMWF and Copernicus multi-model outlooks show high confidence for above-normal heat directly over the Rhine catchment area. On rainfall, the available long-term forecasts are split, keeping different outcomes on the table.

Why Supply Chain Desks Must Plan Ahead

The transmission mechanism into the broader freight market is entirely a matter of capacity volume. A single large Rhine barge moves the payload equivalent of 50 to 150 trucks. As draft restrictions tighten, water surcharges climb, effective river capacity shrinks, and time-sensitive industrial cargo inevitably spills over onto road and rail networks.

In past disruptions, this modal shift has caused localized strains in southern Germany and a measurable drag on regional industrial activity. The underlying road market in 2026 will feel the effects because, unlike previous years, when there was sufficient capacity to absorb diverted water freight, current contract networks are operating with very little cushion. It would take only a few hundred unplanned FTL spot requests per week within the Rhine basin to pressure carrier rejection rates and push spot rates higher across Central and Western Europe.

In April, Kaub was an early warning light. The data now shows a flashing amber light. Shippers should actively secure critical Middle Rhine-basin road capacity now and build robust modal-shift contingencies into their late-summer plans. If rainfall and mild temperatures do not return, the window for proactive scheduling and risk mitigation will close, forcing operations to rely solely on crisis management.

Oleksandr Kulish
Senior Consultant
Trimble Transportation (Transporeon)

While Romania’s transition to the per-kilometer TollRo system has been delayed until October 2026, European road freight operators face immediate cost increases as the Netherlands and Flanders launch new distance-based tolls or CO2 surcharges on July 1, with Lithuania following in 2027.

On 10 June 2026, the Chamber of Deputies in Romania approved the bill pushing the operational launch of TollRo from 1 July to 1 October 2026. The act still awaits presidential promulgation, but it is expected to happen soon. This decision shifts the same planned system, the same legal backbone (Law 226/2023), and the same tariff order issued last October by three more months on the clock, after an earlier six-month slip from the original 1 January 2026 target.

The delay appears to be driven less by politics than by readiness. Romania’s road authority, CNAIR, received the test version of the national tolling platform only in June, leaving less than a month to check whether it could work reliably before the July deadline. That testing matters: the system has to match each truck with official vehicle data, including weight and emissions class, before it can calculate the correct per-kilometre charge. Launching without proper checks would raise the risk of wrong charges, disputed fines and disruption for hauliers.

The Financial Impact: Calculating the New Rates

For operators, the basic model is still the same. TollRo will apply to freight vehicles over 3.5 tonnes, with charges calculated by distance travelled, vehicle weight category, road type and Euro emissions class. Payment will be possible through an on-board tolling unit, a pre-declared single-trip route ticket, or CNAIR’s free eTarife app. The important correction is the price level. The final rates are not the low figures floated during the early 2025 consultation. The enacted tariff table, set by Order 1925/2025, is roughly three times higher than that of the earlier summer draft.

So a toll for the standard Euro VI 40-tonne truck should cost about €0.10/km on motorways and €0.05/km on national roads. Such a truck running ~100,000 km a year on Romanian tolled roads faces roughly €4,700 (all national roads) to €9,500 (all motorway) and around €7,000 on a realistic mixed profile, close to five times today’s ~€1,425/year vignette charge rather than the doubling the early draft implied. But the same math used for trucks doing only sporadic transits through Romania would now be in the carrier’s favour, dropping the need to purchase an expensive vignette for once-a-month transits. The new per km toll would still allow Romania to sit among the cheapest in the region, considerably below Hungary, Austria, Slovenia and Bulgaria, but the gap has narrowed sharply, and the pain will affect the older domestic fleets where the emission surcharges bite hardest.

Industry Backlash: Margin Pressure on Local Carriers

This is also where most of the industry’s concern is focused. Romanian transport associations, including COTAR and UNTRR, have warned that the new system will be hardest on small local carriers, especially those running only a few trucks and older Euro IV or Euro V vehicles. They argue that higher road charges could speed up consolidation in a market where many operators already work on thin margins. COTAR has also pushed back against any setup where CNAIR’s own app becomes the only free payment channel, calling instead for open access so private fleet-management and toll platforms can connect to the system.

The mood among drivers is even more direct. On transport forums and social media, many compare the planned charges with “German-level fees” while pointing to Romania’s slower road network, single-lane national roads and long border delays. For them, TollRo is often seen less as an environmental reform and more as another cost layered on top of recent increases in vignettes, insurance and compliance systems such as RO-eTransport. Cross-border operators may also face a messy transition: full European toll-service interoperability is expected to come later, possibly only in early 2027, so some carriers may need to rely on route tickets or temporary on-board units at launch.

The 1 July 2026 cluster: Netherlands and Flanders

Romanian toll development is not the only one worth circling. On 1 July 2026, the Netherlands will introduce its long-prepared distance charge (vrachtwagenheffing) for N2 and N3 trucks over 3,500 kg, ending the Eurovignette validity in the country. Every truck - domestic or foreign - needs a working OBU from an approved provider; enforcement starts day one.

The same day, Flanders adds a CO2 surcharge to its existing Viapass kilometer charge - not a new toll, but a new pricing parameter. Trucks are slotted into five CO2 classes, with Flemish rates spanning roughly €0.010 to €0.395/km. The catch: every OBU in Belgium must carry a registered CO2 class before 1 July, even vehicles only running in Brussels or Wallonia, where the surcharge does not yet apply.

On the horizon: Lithuania’s “Via Toll” in 2027

Lithuania is next in line. From 1 January 2027, the country plans to replace its vignette system with “Via Toll”, a distance-based electronic road charge for transport categories N1, N2 and N3, covering freight vehicles from light commercial vans to heavy trucks over 12 tonnes. The network is expected to cover around 2,800 km of tolled roads, with charges based on distance travelled, vehicle category, weight, axle count, emissions class and fuel type.

The first published figures suggest that a standard heavy truck will face a rate in the same broad range as the Netherlands, and above Romania. The standard Euro VI 40-tonne, five-axle truck will face roughly €0.12/km of toll costs, subject to final confirmation by the Lithuanian authorities.

For the market, the message is familiar: these developments confirm the ongoing trend of implementing the EU’s intention to phase out annual vignettes in favour of per km tolls using digital payment models, with cleaner vehicles paying less and high-mileage operations facing costs that are easy to calculate but impossible to ignore.

Oleksandr Kulish
Senior Consultant
Trimble Transportation (Transporeon)

Over the weekend, something happened that energy markets had been pricing in for days but that few in the transport industry had dared to plan around: the United States and Iran announced an agreement that, upon signing, is expected to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Brent crude, trading within $103-113 USD per barrel in May and June, fell to around $83 today. Diesel prices across Europe have been retreating, reflecting the oil price decline and mitigation measures. Germany, which peaked at €2.44 per liter in late March, is now depending on the region, at around €1.80.

For carriers who have been absorbing a fuel cost shock of historic proportions since late February, this is real and welcome relief. But I want to be precise about what it is — and, more importantly, what it is not.

It is not a reset. It is not a return to the market conditions of January. And for anyone managing a transport budget, supply chain or fleet, treating it as such would entail significant risk.

How we got here, and why the asymmetry matters

When the military conflict involving the US, Israel, and Iran erupted on February 28, the Strait of Hormuz — which handles roughly 20% of global oil ocean traffic — faced a de facto blockade almost immediately. When trading opened on March 2, Brent spiked 10 to 12% in a single session. We wrote at the time that diesel markets exhibit a well-documented asymmetric behavior: they rise quickly on bad news and fall slowly when markets calm. That asymmetry is likely playing out exactly as described.

The reason for the asymmetry is structural, not accidental. Europe’s diesel supply network — rebuilt after the loss of Russian-sourced fuels — is a fragile, multi-leg import chain with lead times of three to six weeks. It embeds a permanent risk premium into every liter of imported product, leaving European prices highly sensitive to distant geopolitical events, shipping disruptions, and refinery outages in supplier regions. On top of that, Europe’s own domestic refining capacity has been eroding steadily.

This is why, even with Brent at $83 and a deal on the table, European pump prices will not return to January levels quickly. Mines need to be cleared from the Strait. Idled production fields need to be restarted. Damaged energy infrastructure in the Persian Gulf needs to be repaired. Full normalization of oil and, more importantly, refined products flows takes weeks to months, not days. The relief could be real, but the recovery is partial and slow.

Three trajectories, and what each means for contracted rates

The deal announced creates three distinct forward paths. Each has a materially different implication for transport costs, and I think it is worth being honest about the uncertainty rather than defaulting to the most comfortable scenario.

The first path is a clean reopening. The agreement holds, mine clearance and infrastructure repair proceed without major incidents, and tanker transits resume meaningfully by mid-July. In this scenario, Brent retreats toward the $70 to $80 range by the end of July — consistent with the pre-crisis fundamental picture of global oversupply that was the consensus before February 28. European retail diesel would fall toward €1.55 to €1.70 per liter across core markets by August, approaching but not reaching January levels. Germany could approach €1.65 to €1.70; France €1.75 to €1.80; the Netherlands €1.85 to €1.95. Governmental measures and subsidies will be suspended in this scenario.

For the contracted transport market, this means fuel floaters on contracted rates adjust downward in the July and August billing cycles — typically with a four to six week lag. The EU contract price index could retreat 2 to 3 index points from its current level of 141.

But I want to be clear about what this does not mean in my view: it does not mean a return to 2025 or January 2026 contracted transport rate levels. The structural capacity deficit — carrier bankruptcies, fleet underinvestment, driver shortages — remains fully intact and is the dominant pricing driver.

The second path is a stalled implementation. The deal faces obstacles, and tanker transits remain severely restricted through July, with only partial resumption. Brent stabilizes in the $88 to $96 range, below the crisis peak but well above pre-crisis levels. European retail diesel holds in the €1.80 to €2.00 range — essentially the current trajectory including governmental relief measures. Contracted rates plateau slightly below current levels. Fuel floaters remain elevated. And critically, the carrier liquidity pressure that has been driving bankruptcies continues. Every carrier that exits the market removes trucks that will not be replaced quickly.

The third path is a collapse of the agreement. The deal unravels and the Strait remains closed. Brent re-tests $110 and potentially approaches the $125 threshold we modeled in our Week 10 analysis. European retail diesel re-accelerates toward €2.10 to €2.30 per liter across core markets. The psychological €2.00 retail mark — which may trigger new government intervention — is breached again in Germany, France, and Belgium. Emergency fiscal measures return to the political agenda. For the contracted transport market, this means a second though lower wave of upward correction pressure in Q3.

I would not assign equal probability to these three paths. The deal seems real, and the market has already priced in meaningful progress, as today’s crude oil prices and stock markets show. But the obstacles to full implementation are also real, and the course of this conflict since February 28 has consistently delivered negative developments. The base case could also be a gradual, partial reopening that delivers meaningful but incomplete diesel relief through July. The tail risks in both directions remain significant.

The structural reality that no amount of diesel relief can fix

This is the part of the analysis I want to particularly emphasize, because it is the part most at risk of being obscured by the noise around the Hormuz deal.

The European transport market was already structurally tighter than at any point since 2022 before the crisis began. The FY2025 annual reports of Europe’s major publicly listed carriers — which we examined in detail last week — showed another year of declining road division margins, the fourth consecutive year of compression. Driver wages, tolls, and vehicle costs continued to rise across European lanes throughout 2025. Carriers with their own fleets and long contract cycles felt this first. Smaller operators, with less bargaining power and no diversified global businesses to cross-subsidize weakened road operations, were in even worse shape. Insolvency data from France, Poland, and Germany in this sector confirmed this throughout 2025 and into 2026.

The capacity index is currently 7 index points below year-ago levels, and the trend line has been accelerating downward in April. The Ziegler France bankruptcy and liquidation is not an isolated event. It is a template, seen in many countries. The ripple effects of a single, large carrier exit eliminate more capacity than the headline fleet reduction suggests, because subcontractors, depot networks, and driver pools are disrupted far beyond the headline numbers.

What the Hormuz crisis did was add a fuel cost shock on top of this already strained structure. It accelerated carrier bankruptcies that were already in the pipeline. It prevented fleet investments that were already unlikely. It widened the spot-to-contract spread at exactly the moment when contracted capacity was already being rejected at elevated rates. And it did all of this during a period of genuine demand growth.

The diesel relief, if it materializes fully, removes the acute fuel cost crisis from the equation. What remains is a market that was already running out of trucks before the crisis began — and has been made structurally tighter still by everything the crisis accelerated. A drop in diesel prices does not rebuild the fleets that were never ordered. It does not reverse the bankruptcies that have already been filed.

The Strait of Hormuz may be reopening. The European transport market’s structural tightening is not.

Christian Dolderer
Principal Domain Expert
Trimble Transportation (Transporeon)

As FY 2025 annual reports are now in, we are revisiting the topic. The picture in 2025 was not of recovery - at least not in divisional profitability. For most of the cohort, 2025 was another step down. The market beneath them, meanwhile, continued to restructure: carriers exited, capacity tightened, and rates began to move - but often not fast enough to restore margins.

The 2025 scorecards show that margins for road and intermodal divisions kept falling for most of the six major publicly traded logistics providers we tracked, with revenue often flat or up while EBIT came under pressure from subdued European road demand, persistent cost inflation, and contract pricing that lagged costs. DSV’s picture is harder to read after the Schenker deal, and Waberer’s reporting shift makes year-on-year comparison less clean, but the underlying story matches DHL and Kuehne+Nagel: land transport in Europe stayed tough. Waberer’s was the outlier, becoming slightly more profitable, although from a low base. Generally, asset-heavy names like Waberer’s and XPO Europe remained near breakeven despite some growth.The main drivers behind the falling margins in 2025 carried over from the previous period, as cost inflation did not take a year off. Driver wages, tolls and vehicle costs continued to rise across European lanes. Carriers with their own fleets and long contract cycles felt this first.

The main drivers behind the falling margins in 2025 carried over from the previous period, as cost inflation did not take a year off. Driver wages, tolls and vehicle costs continued to rise across European lanes. Carriers with their own fleets and long contract cycles felt this first.

Rates stabilized in places but did not fully catch up. Data from Transporeon Market Insights pointed to spot and contract rates converging and sentiment improving in late 2025, but listed divisional margins still lagged costs for most of the year. Spot-exposed business adjusted faster; contract-heavy road networks did not, as demand stayed soft. European industrial production and road freight volumes offered no strong tailwind. Stable revenue at tracked carriers reflected this.

The footnote from the original piece still applies: margins are not perfectly comparable across companies, because divisions bundle road with forwarding, logistics, or insurance differently. The directional signal was nonetheless clear - and it pointed the same way as in 2024.

Asset-based mid-size and smaller carriers almost certainly faced margin compression equal to or greater than the figures above suggest. They have less bargaining power on rates, less room to absorb sustained cost increases, a higher cost of capital and no diversified global businesses to cross-subsidize weakened road operations.

That pressure showed up in the market structure, not only in annual reports. Rising insolvency and exit data from France, Poland and Germany pointed to continued carrier attrition through 2025 - especially among smaller operators with fewer than ten trucks. The struggles reflected in weak new fleet registrations persisted, as carriers remained hesitant to invest in new capacity beyond mandatory renewals. Underinvestment in capacity that we flagged as a consequence of prolonged margin erosion was still visible in 2025 registration and ordering data.

Last year also highlighted two structural shifts:

Consolidation accelerated. DSV’s Schenker deal is the headline, but the logic extends across the market: giants are buying share, mid-sized operators become targets, and smaller carriers fight for survival instead of reinvesting.

The capacity side began to tighten even in a weakened demand market. Bankruptcies, fleet reductions and withdrawals reduced effective capacity. That is the setup we consider as the precursor to margin recovery, which did not have time to materialize in 2025.

For shippers, 2024 and much of 2025 remained an environment of stagnant or depressed contract rates relative to the cost base carriers were carrying. That advantage is now eroding. Capacity exits, aging fleets, and tightening driver supply are the medium-term ingredients for firmer pricing, particularly on spot and renewal cycles - even if European GDP growth stays modest. Ruthless cost management, digital tools for utilization and pricing, service diversification, and - for those with balance-sheet capacity - consolidation are the levers that separate targets of fighting for flat EBIT from gaining market share.

The setup that was missing in 2025 is now assembling quickly. Demand, which ended 2025 at a seasonal low with automotive and construction freight particularly weak, has turned: by early 2026, both sectors were recovering meaningfully, beating prior-year levels and adding volume pressure to a supply side that has not had time to rebuild. That demand uptick is colliding with structurally short capacity - new truck registrations stayed low through 2025, and carrier bankruptcies have continued into 2026 - while a sharp spike in diesel prices from March 2026, linked to Strait of Hormuz disruptions, has added a fresh cost shock on top of an already strained cost base. Spot rates hit new highs in spring 2026, with premiums over contract rates widening further; contracted prices are following, but with the inherent lag. For carriers that survived the squeeze, the margin recovery the annual reports have not yet shown should now arrive, driven not by a booming economy, but by a fuel-shocked market that finally ran out of cheap capacity.

Oleksandr Kulish
Senior Consultant
Trimble Transportation (Transporeon)

The Indicator: Why “Load Rejections” Matter

At the heart of this analysis are contracted load rejections—a crucial KPI reflecting available transport capacity. A surge in rejections indicates reduced capacity or a lack of attractiveness for a specific route. For the Italian exporter, this signals increased costs, delivery delays, and operational inefficiencies. By monitoring these rejections, market participants can anticipate shifts and refine their logistics strategies.

The Great Divergence: Brenner vs. The West

Reports and news in 2024 and 2025 discussed the potential disruption the industry might face due to construction work at Brenners’ Luegbridge. This prompted us to research whether a shift in capacity supply for the Northern Italian exports to major European countries became visible. In theory, the expected disruptions should have led to rising load rejections at destinations reliant on this most important cross-alpine artery. While we prepared ourselves for the impact that transports to Germany or Poland had faced, we were hit by a surprise:

• The Northern Resilience: Rejections for Germany and Poland saw only a moderate increase.

• The Western Surge: A dramatic spike in rejections occurred for transports heading into France, Italy’s second-largest trading partner.

In 2020 and 2024, rejections to all three destination countries followed the same pattern and exhibited expected volatility. In 2025, a structural decoupling of France from the others became visible. Although rejections for transports to Germany and Poland showed a seasonal surge at the beginning of May, the structural decoupling has persisted since then.

For visual purposes, Germany and Poland are combined into a single line on the chart, but both show similar movements and typical volatility.

Decoding the Shift: Why is this happening?

The most interesting, but also challenging, question is: How is it possible that the most feared bottleneck (Brenner) held steady while the French route faltered? What factors could have contributed to such an unexpected market behavior?

No single concise answer comes to mind that explains all these movements. Various factors consequently need to impact current rejection values.

• Reduced demand for transportation towards Germany and Poland, while demand into France rose.

• Significantly better operational processes, allowing more fluent traffic on the Brenner route than expected.

• The high availability of intermodal options to Germany and Poland mitigated a significant road capacity effect.

• The international fleet reduced its presence and eagerness to serve the Italian market, particularly for transports into France, or did not grow as needed.

The Vulnerability of “Foreign Wheels”

Eurostat figures confirm these fundamental structures. Data showed a 9.7% increase in tonne-kilometers for transports toward France between 2023 and 2024. If we assume accelerated growth in 2025, the demand is clearly there.

However, the Eurostat data also highlights a strategic vulnerability: International, Eastern Europe-based trucks account for 49.3% of these transports, while Italian and French carriers combined account for only 43%. This confirms a heavy reliance on a global fleet that, as it seems, is currently prioritizing other routes over the Italian-French axis.

Outlook for 2026

Combining all of this, we see a strong indication that demand for transport to France increased, while capacity provision and service levels decreased, as confirmed by the rejections measured in Transporeon Market Insights. For transports to Germany and Poland, initial fears proved unfounded, likely due to better-than-expected traffic conditions and suitable intermodal options.

Based on the most recent developments, we don’t expect changes to this structural change. For shippers and carriers, finding capacity to France will remain challenging for the rest of 2026.

Christian Dolderer
Principal Domain Expert
Trimble Transportation (Transporeon)

A Fuel Shock with Unequal Geography

When crude oil surged past $105 per barrel in March, European retail diesel prices spiked right alongside it. The response from European governments has been anything but uniform. They have varied widely in their efforts to cushion the blow for carriers and consumers, and this variance maps almost perfectly onto the Nordic freight premiums the market is currently experiencing.

Finland and Denmark put no meaningful relief in place. Sweden has acted, but its May 1 energy tax cut, which brings rates down to the EU minimum, delivers only about 4 cents per litre of effective relief. Norway is the Nordic outlier worth noting. It zeroed its road use tax starting April 1 and extended further cuts into May, delivering the most aggressive relief package in Europe. Its pump price of €1.91 per litre is now below the EU average, a remarkable position for a country that was among the most expensive before the crisis. The consequence for the freight market is equally clear. Contract rates from Norway to Sweden have remained nearly flat in recent months, making it the only Nordic corridor showing no rate pressure.

The Distance Multiplier and Outbound Disparities

Fuel cost is not just a function of price per litre. It is also a function of distance, and Nordic lanes are long. Many key supply flows into Sweden or Finland cover 500 to 1,500 kilometres one way. With fuel accounting for 25% to 30% of total carrier operating costs, carriers realise they must recover almost double their fuel expenses through rate adjustments on the inbound leg.

Since February, inbound spot rates to Nordic destinations have surged sharply, while outbound rates from those same markets have moved far more modestly. The spot over contract price premiums are now reaching 20% to 25% across the board. These are among the highest in Europe and are concentrated entirely in the inbound direction. The Denmark to Germany outbound lane is an example of another angle of the same story. Spot rates are running below contracted rates even into May. Lower outbound demand means carriers heading south are still accepting loads at below contracted rates, sometimes even below their direct costs.

Selective Pricing and Shifting Capacity

Rejection rates confirm that carriers are selectively exercising their pricing power. Inbound rejection rates to Denmark from Germany have risen steadily since February, reaching 27% to 30% in April. Carriers are refusing contracted loads at rates that barely cover their costs in a strained capacity market. Instead, they are pushing volume to the spot market, which is exactly where the premium is most visible.

The practical implication is straightforward. The cost of shipping to the Nordics is rising much faster than the cost of shipping from them, and that gap is only getting wider. Denmark and Finland, the two markets with the highest diesel prices and the least policy relief, are feeling the most acute pressure. Sweden is partially insulated by its May tax cut, but the relief is incredibly modest relative to the initial shock.

Takeaways for Shippers

For shippers with regular inbound Nordic volumes, the goal is not to hunt for cheaper contracts. Instead, it is crucial to lock in existing suppliers through healthy collaboration and improved, transparent scheduling.

While the peak diesel prices may have passed, fuel costs in Nordic countries remain at the top of the European price tables. Furthermore, the structural backhaul imbalance that amplifies the inbound premium remains unchanged. Carriers heading north are pricing in both the elevated fuel costs and the asymmetry of the return trip. Until that asymmetry resolves or until other Nordic governments follow Norway’s generous fuel policy, the extra North premium is here to stay.

Oleksandr Kulish
Senior Consultant
Trimble Transportation (Transporeon)

Spot prices are heavily influenced by the market forces of demand and capacity. When demand increases, the market typically experiences reduced capacity and increased inefficiencies. This dynamic is reflected in two key indicators: contracted load rejections and the number of offers per load on the spot market.

For better visualization and alignment of the development of the contracted load rejection index with the spot offers index, rejections are displayed inverted in the graph. Therefore, the decreases in this graph for rejections and spot offers both indicate lower capacity and correlate with the price increases.

This chart highlights the divergence between capacity indicators (rejections and offers) and spot price development, showcasing a typical market reaction during capacity tightness. With both capacity indicators declining significantly and inverted rejections persistently below previous years’ levels, we almost certainly see a capacity squeeze as the reason for the recent surge in spot market rates in France.

One would say: What about the high diesel prices due to the Strait of Hormuz blockage? What’s their contribution to the increase, or what effect do they have on the market? Well, the market is impacted directly by pure diesel increases, but also indirectly in various ways, such as:

• Higher usage of the contracted market due to significantly lower and delayed price increases compared to spot (as indicated by surging rejections)

• Liquidity pressure on the carrier side due to high diesel prices vs. delayed price adjustments, worsening the financial situation of carriers and increasing the risk of bankruptcies

The gold-shaded area in this chart shows the spot price premium compared to the same week in 2025. While a clear distillation of the Strait of Hormuz blockage’s impact on the spot market in France is not possible, we can quantify the direct diesel price (+41% YoY) impact using our total cost of ownership (TCO) model. Week 20 showed a spot price premium of 35,6% compared to 2025, where diesel prices should only account for 10,8 percentage points.

The weeks are also comparable from a public holiday perspective; in fact, 2025 had a slightly less favorable constellation, with May 8th on a Thursday instead of Friday in 2026. Taking this into consideration, the capacity-squeezing environment this year is shaping the market with a premium of around 25%, accelerated by a diesel premium of 10%.

As this premium is mostly capacity-related, a near-term drop of spot prices to 2025 levels or slightly above, even if diesel prices return to 2025 levels, is impossible. France will likely continue to experience very high spot prices through the summer. And this is not a France-only event; we see a similar pattern across many other major European transport markets.

Christian Dolderer
Principal Domain Expert
Trimble Transportation (Transporeon)

The majority of the changes we see in recent years stem from the implementation of the revised Eurovignette Directive. While the directive mandates CO2-differentiated tolls across the EU to incentivise cleaner vehicles, our Q2 2026 research reveals a heavily fragmented picture. Despite widespread formal adoption, the real-world impact of these environmental incentives is concentrated in one large “island”.

Overall, toll costs represent a substantial share of operational expenses for European transport operators, but the burden is distributed unevenly. Based on the current Q2 2026 Total Cost of Ownership model figures, toll cost shares are the highest in Central European regions. Switzerland leads with tolls accounting for a massive 28% of total transport costs, followed closely by Austria and Hungary at 22%. Germany currently sits at 16%, while France and Italy maintain steady shares of 14% and 13%, respectively. In many other nations, the result is still in single digits or negligible. Baseline is also actively shifting. By Q3 2026, the Netherlands and Romania will introduce new tolling systems, expanding the map of active systems with per km fees. More countries are expected to follow over the next few years.

However, looking at raw toll costs only tells half the story; the true market disruptor is how some of these toll networks penalise diesel-fueled trucks and reward zero-emission alternatives.

The underlying premise of CO2-differentiated tolling is straightforward: pollute less, pay less. For Battery Electric Vehicles (BEVs) and other environmentally friendly engines, toll exemptions and steep discounts are meant to bridge the upfront purchase price gap compared to diesel trucks. Translating this policy into viable financial incentives has resulted in distinct core clusters in Europe, consisting of DACH countries and Denmark, with the Netherlands and the Flanders region of Belgium joining it soon.

As highlighted on the map, “Significant Impact” markets show real-world financial leverage, tipping the TCO scales in favour of a zero-emission truck with a clear financial advantage of 10 cents/km or more.

Germany serves as the prime example. Following the introduction of its aggressive CO2 surcharge in late 2023, toll costs for diesel trucks rose sharply, while fully electric trucks are exempt from the federal highway toll at least until mid-2031.

Austria has similarly integrated CO2 emission classes into its GO-Maut system, granting zero-emission vehicles profound rate reductions compared to more polluting engine types. Switzerland’s heavy vehicle fee also structurally favours emission-free setups, as do Denmark's recent tolling overhauls. The upcoming Q3 2026 distance-based system in the Netherlands echoes these aggressive strategies, establishing Northwestern and Central Europe as the primary zones where BEV deployment yields massive operational savings. And that shows in the latest data on new registrations of electric trucks, which reached double-digit share of all new heavy truck registrations in some of those countries, according to the Q1 2026 data from ACEA.

Outside of this high-impact core, the economic argument for BEVs based on toll savings weakens considerably. The map of toll impact highlights several countries where CO2 differentiation offers only “Minor Impact” or none at all.

For example, Sweden has formally adopted CO2 differentiation to comply with the Eurovignette framework. However, because the country lacks an EUR per km tolling system for heavy trucks on its general road network, relying instead on time-based Eurovignette, the actual financial benefit for operating a zero-emission truck remains negligible.

Similarly, Eastern European markets exhibit muted incentives, albeit for different reasons. In Poland, where road tolls still account for a low share of total freight costs, even a generous discount for a BEV fails to yield enough absolute savings to justify the heavy capital investment required for an electric truck. Hungary presents a unique paradox: despite having a very high overall toll cost share, the structural incentives and CO2 discount scaling for BEVs remain too low to dramatically disrupt the TCO balance between diesel and electric options.

As we progress through 2026, the European freight map is effectively splitting into two tiers. For operators running intensive routes through this “core” region, the transition of parts of their network to BEV operations is not only a “nice to have” sustainability goal – it is a critical commercial advantage, only exacerbated now by diesel price increases.

Meanwhile, in countries with low tolls or mere Eurovignette baseline CO2 compliance like Poland, Sweden, and Hungary, the shift toward zero-emission freight will likely bring the introduction of new policies, direct purchase subsidies, or customer-driven CO2-reduction goals. Fleet managers must increasingly adapt their vehicle deployment and route-planning strategies not just to A/B flows but also to the boundaries of these new toll-impact clusters.

Oleksandr Kulish
Senior Consultant
Trimble Transportation (Transporeon)

The following map illustrates changes in heavy truck registrations from Q1 of 2025 to Q1 of 2026. The outcome varies, but the overall increasing trend in Europe is visible.

In the past few quarters, we saw many countries colored blue, with only some yellow outliers occurring. This time, a more positive picture is visible, showing that several more countries have turned to the plus side in the YoY comparison. Even better, that fleet heavyweights (with their usual high absolute numbers of registrations) like Poland, Spain, Germany and Italy are seeing increases. On the contrary Belgium, Finland, Hungary and France continued the downward trend.

This positive development is urgently needed to mitigate and limit the downward trend in available road capacity across Europe. The following chart provides a visualization of recent developments and trends in total registrations, including heavy-duty BEVs, FCEVs and natural gas vehicles.

Registrations are trending upwards, however, totals remain significantly below the peak levels. Following recent developments, like Volvo’s lift in truck market expectation after order intake increases during Q1, we expect the trend to continue in Q2. This is an important and crucial development as the available capacity in the market approaches their all time lows according to our capacity index figures.

Another trend is that BEVs registrations almost doubled compared to Q1 of 2025, contributing to the overall increases, although they still remain niche on a grand scale with a 2,2% share in Europe. Without the growth contributions from electric trucks, the registration would only show a 11,8% increase compared to 12,9%.

Stay tuned for Market Monday on May 25th with an in-depth analysis of other engine type registrations and usage as measured in the Transporeon platform.

Christian Dolderer
Principal Domain Expert
Trimble Transportation (Transporeon)

As you can see in the included 30-day chart of the Kaub gauge, water levels have seen a steady, concerning decline throughout late April, now hovering around the 120 to 125 cm mark.

The Kaub gauge, located between Koblenz and Mainz in western Germany, is the shallowest point on the Middle Rhine, where hundreds of barges pass every day, transporting more than 50 million tons of cargo each year. This point dictates the maximum draft (and therefore laden cargo weight) for vessels transiting between the deep-sea ports (ARA) and the industrial hinterlands of Germany and France. Long-term average water level at Kaub is 208 cm, and April averages are even higher at 230+ cm.

A water level reading of 120 cm does not mean the river can be crossed by foot (I would strongly advise against it), but it indicates that the operations on the river are already limited by the maximum draft of the barges, as at this level, a standard cargo barge can only move at 60-80% normal capacity by weight. To avoid issues, operators must reduce maximum cargo weight, meaning that now it either takes more vessels to move the same amount of cargo or some of the cargo must be shifted to other modes of transport. River shipping companies usually compensate for this effect by applying low water surcharges, making river transport more expensive and harder to secure.

What makes the current situation so concerning is the calendar. Historically, the Rhine is flush in the spring, filled by Alpine snowmelt and seasonal rains. The traditional “low water season” usually hits in late summer or autumn (August through October). Seeing Kaub levels plunge to 120 cm in late April is rare. We witnessed a similar “spring drought” anomaly just last year in 2025, but before that, you have to look back to the historic European heatwave of 2003, or all the way to the 20th century, to find comparable spring lows. But what is different this year vs 2025 is that the road market went from a relative abundance of capacity to scarcity, as illustrated in our chart below. Last year, the transport industry could absorb some extra freight diverted from the river. However, in our current environment, the outcome might be different.

A single large Rhine barge carries the volume equivalent of 100 to 150 full truckloads of heavy bulk and loose freight like chemicals and steel or intermodal container shipments. If raw materials and import containers begin piling up at BeNeLux terminals, shippers with time-sensitive supply chains will be forced to bypass the river entirely, putting those containers directly on the way south with a truck. Just a few hundred unexpected FTL spot requests may tip the market in its current state, rapidly consuming available trucks. Historical data shows that this quickly drives upward rejection rates for contracted freight and triggers aggressive rate spikes on the spot market.

According to the latest German Federal Institute of Hydrology’s (BfG) 14-day probabilistic forecast, there is no immediate relief in sight. Models show a near-certainty (98%) that levels will drop below 117 cm by early May, worsening the current strain.

And the worst-case scenarios are even more concerning, as the forecast indicates a nearly 50% chance of the Kaub gauge dropping below 100 cm within the next two weeks. At that depth, draft restrictions become severe, and cargo “spills” to the road will be almost unavoidable. The only silver lining is that a complete suspension of barge traffic if the reading drops below the ~77cm level is relatively improbable (<5%).

For road transport professionals operating in these regions, the current Kaub water level is essentially an early warning indicator for truck capacity. While usually early June marks the beginning of the ample capacity and declining spot rates, this year the effect might be reduced or shifted to a later period. We would advise securing critical capacity in the Rhine basin earlier than later and prepare for increased spot market competition if this dry spell continues into May.

Oleksandr Kulish
Senior Consultant

Where does the market stand, and is it heading into a more seller- or buyer-favourable condition? A question many transport and logistics professionals face, particularly given current geopolitical uncertainty.

Some may say that, with high energy costs, the resulting reduction in economic activity, and downwardly revised industrial growth expectations, the European road freight market should indicate a more buyer (shipper)-favourable market situation. Others argue that in the current low-capacity/high-cost pressure environment, the opposite should be true. Both are possible, so it’s the ideal time to zoom in on recent data movements and indicators.

Some months ago, we developed the European Road Freight Balance Index. This index shows the interplay between demand and supply and allows conclusions about how favourable or unfavourable a market is for a shipper or carrier. In essence, it measures the gap between our capacity and demand indices. We derived a corridor of relative market balance between 5 and -5, based on historical values and customer experiences. The closer the index moves towards these boundaries or beyond, the more the market shows typical signs of the respective situation.

Typical seasonal patterns are perfectly visible within the years, and longer periods of sellers’ or buyers’ markets align with overall expectations and other market sources.

Since the rather soft market in 2023, we have seen a persistent upward trend towards a seller’s market. This March’s value is significantly higher than 2025’s, indicating a persistent upward trend. In March, both components showed typical upward movements, with demand above and capacity below last year’s respective levels. In the data, we can’t see (until mid-April) any indications of a softening in demand; also, capacity shows a persistent downward trend across all components (fleet, contracted rejections, and spot market offers).

Based on this analysis and all foundational movements, I expect April and May to cross the +5 threshold, indicating a favourable market to carriers (transport capacity sellers). Recent geopolitical uncertainties and their dampening effects will only marginally affect the April and May interplay between transportation demand & capacity.

Cycling back to the initial question, the data suggests that the market currently offers favourable conditions for sellers. For a fleet owner, a rather good position to offset the recent diesel price highs. For a shipper, reduced need for short-term transport due to improved planning, forecast provision & accuracy, and efficient loading/unloading processes could help to reduce the negative impacts.

Whether the long-term trends of the past few years will persist through the latter half of 2026 remains to be seen, as they are heavily dependent on geopolitical events around the Strait of Hormuz.

Christian Dolderer
Lead Research Analyst
Trimble Transportation (Transporeon)

In March, demand rebounded to the January growth trajectory and managed to exceed the levels of last years. All industries, led by Construction Materials, demonstrate a healthy…

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In order to exclude the increases in cost base and account for correspondingly higher baseline estimates, I decided to analyze the spot rate premiums during the Easter window relative to their pre-holiday baselines (average of spot rate index from 6 weeks before till 3 weeks before Easter week). The escalation is stark. In 2023, the market reached a seasonal high at a 10% premium. In 2024, the peak value rose to 12%, followed by 14% in 2025. This year, the 2026 Easter season saw spot premiums reach 19% over the mentioned 4-week baseline. Interestingly, the data suggests that capacity during the week after Easter (Post-Easter week on the chart below) remains strained or even worsens, creating a sticky, high-cost plateau that dissipates slowly over the next few weeks.

What is driving these exponential year-over-year surges? As we have explored in our recent articles, the foundational issue is a continuous erosion of available market capacity. The European road transport sector has been running increasingly lean, as carriers are optimizing their new fleet purchases amid shrinking margins. When the demand even slightly increases, like this year, the “overflow buffer” of available capacity quickly evaporates. When a major holiday hits and a significant portion of the driver workforce takes several days or weeks of leave, the relative drop in available trucks hits much harder against an already constrained market. Carriers are forced to reject contracted volumes they simply cannot cover, pushing a wave of urgent freight onto an increasingly algorithm-driven spot market that is starved for trucks and quickly reacts to capacity changes. In this low-elasticity environment, bidding wars intensify rapidly.

Of course, not the whole massive leap to a 19% premium in 2026 can be explained by capacity constraints alone. This year, rising fuel prices acted as a hidden catalyst. Historically, fluctuations in fuel prices do not instantly translate into spot market volatility, as it is driven by capacity and demand balance far more than by fuel prices. But I still consider that this year’s fuel price shock also played a role in carriers' state of mind and shifted their baselines for spot rate calculations higher. Knowing capacity was scarce, I suspect that some of them preemptively priced in the fuel risks, resulting in over-inflated spot rates for last-minute holiday loads.

The only way for shippers to avoid similar holiday spot price shocks in the future is to shift the focus to early-volume pre-holiday front-loading and securing binding capacity commitments well before the holiday panic sets in.

Breaking News: Germany announces fuel tax cut

In response to soaring energy costs driven by the US-Iran conflict, the German ruling coalition has proposed today a two-month-long reduction in the energy tax on diesel and gasoline by approximately 17 cents per liter, with the loss of tax revenue to be potentially offset by windfall taxes on profits of the businesses in the refining and wholesale fuel trade sectors. Pending a fast-tracked legislative approval process through the German parliament, these measures are anticipated to enter into force within days or weeks and should have a measurable effect on transport costs in Central Europe.

Oleksandr Kulish
Senior Consultant

The capacity index, although based on transactional data, aims to show and explain the overall market sentiment regarding available capacity. Analogously, it rather describes the climate than the weather.

In this analysis, I will focus on recent developments, differences from past periods and future implications. For the full historical discussion and narrative, please revisit the previous article:

The US trucking market faces the highest available capacity reduction in years, as confirmed by the current index value of week 14, which marks a 3-year low. The trend line exhibits a downward tendency, given last years’ high readings, a stabilization or even rather unexpected significant rebounds won’t change one evident fact: The trucking capacity in the US structurally changed after years of capacity exceeding demand. All three components of the capacity index confirm this trend: reductions in offers on the spot market, increases in tender-rejection rates, and sharp declines in new vehicle registrations in the US manifest the shift that began at the end of 2025.

The million-dollar question is, at what level will it stabilize? Will the Strait of Hormuz closure dampen transportation demand and mitigate further potential capacity reductions? In this environment, it is not easy to answer or predict; however, the effect on the market is clear for a potential capacity index value around 100. On one hand, transport prices will adjust, and spot prices will lead. On the other hand, an index value of 100 will still ensure market functionality and all goods will be moved, but at different price levels. Shippers with efficient processes to limit carriers’ downtimes will likely benefit from lower cost increases.

In Europe, in contrast, we left the typical soft period and are approaching the busy period, with numerous public holidays and usual seasonal capacity constraints. However, the trend line shows a downward slope, and it has accelerated recently. Year-on-year, accounting for the Easter-based shift in weeks, we are currently 7 index points down. So far, there is no measurable and demand-dampening effect on the capacity index due to the Middle East turmoil.

Recent news, such as the bankruptcy and liquidation of the French branch of Ziegler Group and the associated closure of numerous sites, highlights the challenging financial situation carriers are still in. The unfortunate ripple effects of this bankruptcy could eliminate more trucking capacity than Ziegler in France accounted for.

The financial pressure based on high diesel prices and the corresponding liquidity gap on the carrier side will prevent them from making fleet investments, which is also true for the US. My earlier expressed hopes in a capacity-mitigating increasing fleet investment literally sank in the Strait of Hormuz.

Christian Dolderer
Lead Research Analyst
Trimble Transportation (Transporeon)

Europe’s reliance on oil imports and limited resources to mitigate the impact has pushed the weighted average diesel fuel price up to an astonishing EU average of €2.07 per liter last week, and this week’s threshold will likely be even higher. With fuel accounting for 25-30% of transport costs basis, commercial carriers and logistics providers faced extreme margin compression, forcing them to engage in immediate and aggressive upward rate correction negotiations with shippers. This is especially true in the contracted freight market, where normally fuel floaters change in a month or even in a quarter after the actual changes in fuel prices.

To prevent a deterioration of critical supply chains and consumer price inflation, European governments have continued drafting and implementing emergency mitigation measures over the past two weeks. However, constrained by national budget realities, the responses have been highly fractured, creating a patchwork of regulations across the European markets.

Staying away from the expensive tax subsidies, Germany and Austria chose a path of stricter regulations aimed at the mechanics of retail and wholesale fuel pricing instead of direct fiscal measures. The Austrian government implemented a severe tightening of its fuel price rules on March 16. Petrol stations are now legally restricted to increasing prices exclusively on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays at exactly 12:00 noon. Germany followed the example on March 27, when the government successfully passed a Fuel Policy Package through the Bundesrat. Entering into force just ahead of the Easter holidays, the legislation structurally restricts petrol stations to a single daily price increase at noon and introduces complex anti-cartel measures aimed at increasing competition on local wholesale and retail fuel markets.

Unlike regulatory solutions above, Poland has deployed heavy fiscal intervention. While a massive fuel VAT reduction (23% to 8%) and retail price caps go live tomorrow, March 31, this headline relief is largely an illusion for commercial carriers. The only operational savings for them come from the excise duty cuts that took effect today, March 30, yielding a slight net reduction of just 28 groszy (~6.5 ct.) per liter for hauliers. To fund these measures, Poland is concurrently implementing a windfall tax on energy corporations.

Across the rest of the continent, the policy patchwork introduced over the last two weeks presents operational complexities for cross-border logistics:

Similarly to Poland, Spain announced an expansive crisis package on March 24, reducing its fuel VAT from 21% to 10% (effective March 22) alongside an extraordinary and temporary cashback subsidy of 20 cents per liter for diesel used in commercial transport activities until 30^th of June.

Greece’s government decided to directly subsidize diesel for transport and agricultural sectors at the distribution level by €0.16 per liter before VAT in April and May.

Taking a middle-ground approach, Sweden announced a 4.7-billion-SEK relief package on March 23 to reduce petrol and diesel taxes to the EU minimum, allowing for 30-40 eurocent discounts at the pump. However, unlike the immediate interventions seen in Southern and Eastern Europe, this relief will not enter into force until May 1.

France, UK, Italy and Bulgaria have rejected untargeted consumer subsidies and direct fiscal measures. France announced measures on March 23 focused on easing payroll levies and extending tax deadlines specifically for the transport sector. The UK (March 24) prioritized aggressive anti-profiteering frameworks. Italy enacted emergency decrees on March 19, deliberately carving out €100 million in tax credit mechanisms exclusively for transport and logistics enterprises.

Meanwhile, Romania adopted a severe emergency ordinance on March 26 (in force from April 1) that legally caps commercial markups and heavily restricts the export of diesel with massive financial penalties, without any direct fiscal measures.

So, while these rapid national interventions are designed to keep the economy and services providers moving, their variance creates severe secondary friction for the road freight market, when at the pump prices in transit countries might be significantly lower than the wholesale prices at the home base country, sparkling “fuel tourism” and introducing potential for sub-optimal routing distance choices, indirectly harming network efficiency, while the need to apply for targeted government rebate schemes increases the administrative load and introduces an additional degree of risk from processing errors. Overall, the absence of a uniform approach in these measures decreases market transparency and complicates the fair spread of fuel price risks between shippers and carriers.

Oleksandr Kulish
Senior Consultant

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The following chart illustrates the dynamics between spot and contract prices across all monitored markets, covering data from more than 100 country-to-country relationships in Europe.

Each data point represents the difference between spot and contracted prices (Index 100) for a specific week. Seasonality plays a role here: in week 51 of 2024, spot prices surged 22.7% above contracted levels, repeated by a 22.2% increase in the same week of 2025

2024 faced significant shipping challenges, with capacity constraints after Easter pushing spot prices above 2023 levels amid high carrier rejections, prompting a shift of contracted shipments to the spot market. After a brief pause in early 2025, prices resumed rising during the second quarter’s holiday season, though there was some relief in late 2025. International markets are driving these trends, with higher premiums than in domestic markets.

Q1 of 2026 confirmed this persistent upward trend, as spot prices, on average across Europe, remained above contracted prices and their 2025 counterparts.

The market will soon experience more pronounced exposure to the self-reinforcing price-increase cycle, driven by seasonal demand and sudden cost-increase factors (high energy prices). This self-reinforcing cycle is best described as follows: Shippers are shifting volumes away from the spot market to avoid the higher prices there. However, the contracted segment’s prices fail to reflect current operating costs, limiting available capacity in this market segment (as reflected in our capacity metrics, such as contracted load rejections), and this is further exacerbated by moderate increases in transportation demand. Consequently, many shipments will be moved to the spot market in April and May due to urgency, further inflating prices.

For two weeks prior to Easter, we expect the spot premium to climb towards 14%. Quick increases in contracted rates due to fuel adjustments, as seen last week, will mitigate spot price premiums. However, the seasonal uptick in demand pressure remains intact and will likely push the spot premiums to last year’s levels. A short-term dampening of transportation demand in response to the negative effects of the Middle East conflict is unlikely.

In summary, the coming weeks will be influenced by tightening capacity and surging energy costs, pushing spot rate premiums to last year’s levels or even beyond.

Christian Dolderer
Lead Research Analyst
Trimble Transportation