'Finding a parking place on a Friday night? Mission impossible'

The Lithuanian Mindaugas Paulauskas began his career as a transport manager and worked his way up to director over the course of seventeen years. He has now held this position for five years. Paulauskas is responsible for truck maintenance, as well as for the drivers and transport managers. His eleven-day truck journey (late February/early March) took him from Scandinavia to Spain.

"I wanted to get closer to the drivers. I do meet them every quarter, but I wanted to truly understand what they experience on the road. That's why I started this project. I also wanted to show the people in the office, as well as my friends and family, what actually happens out there on the road."

Together with an experienced driver, Paulauskas took his place in a truck and hit the road. "It was incredibly interesting to drive a truck on the road for the first time."

In those eleven days, Paulauskas covered over 7,600 kilometers. "Of course, I had received training at our training academy before the trip—how to drive, how to park a truck. I passed all the exams, so I felt comfortable on the road. I met many drivers and had a lot of conversations."

"We talked about things like tires, for example. Whether we might need to use different types of tires in different regions for the Scandinavian fleet. We discussed which tires are better: with spikes or without spikes. Whether we need extra lights, the comfort of seats for a second driver—those kinds of things. What we need to improve when we buy new trucks."

Car parks

One notable issue Paulauskas found was the lack of decent parking spaces. "There are plenty of parking spots, but they’re not all of the same quality. Do they have showers or hot water? In Sweden, Spain, and Germany, it can be very difficult to find a good parking spot, especially on a Friday evening. It's almost mission impossible."

The Mobility Package makes the challenge even greater, says Paulauskas. "It's almost impossible to park a truck near a hotel. At one point, when we stopped in France, I searched for the nearest hotel. It was a full twenty kilometers away. Then I had to order an Uber or a Bolt from the parking lot—if the taxi even shows up—and pay 30 euros to get to the hotel, 60 euros for the hotel itself, and another 30 euros to get back. You end up spending over 100 euros." He adds that these costs are, of course, covered by the company.

'You are responsible for your truck and the fuel, so you don't want to just leave it behind. Fuel is regularly stolen from trucks. There are just not enough secure parking spaces.'

"We’re trying to comply with the Mobility Package, ensuring that drivers take their 45-hour rest in hotels and that the trucks return every eight weeks. But with such a large fleet, the process takes too much time. We’re now considering building an additional base in Poland." Currently, the company has two main offices: one in Poland and one in Lithuania.

Sleeping facility

The company has already ventured into the hotel business for drivers. In Denmark, Thermo-Transit, a Scandinavian food transporter and a subsidiary of Girteka, has built a facility that can accommodate 87 drivers. The building is located near the company's terminal in Padborg. The new facility cost 12 million Danish kroner (1.6 million euros) and covers an area of 725 square meters.

There are 36 double rooms where up to 72 drivers can sleep, and a parking area of 28,000 square meters. Additionally, an existing facility has been renovated to accommodate 15 more drivers. "With double rooms, access to shared kitchens, laundries, and lounges, as well as high-speed internet and television, drivers can rest after a journey and prepare for the trips ahead."

"Our goal is to provide our drivers with a home-away-from-home experience," says Heinrich Nielsen, transport manager at Thermo-Transit. "By offering these extensive facilities, we enable them to rest, recharge, and maintain their personal hygiene during breaks. This way, we ensure that the drivers are fully focused on delivering cargo on time and under the right conditions during their next trip."

Third-country nationals

The company is known for attracting drivers primarily from outside the European Union: from Ukraine and Belarus, or even further afield from Uzbekistan or Kyrgyzstan. A new law in Lithuania will make this more difficult: according to the government, there are significant issues with the payment and working conditions of these third-country nationals. A quota of forty thousand migrants per year will be introduced, based on the total population. For comparison, in 2023, 58,000 labor migrants came to the Baltic state, of whom 26,000 went to work in the transport sector.

With the quota, the company risks not being able to hire enough truckers, fears Paulauskas. "This year, the transport sector has stagnated or even shrunk slightly. But next year, we expect to grow again. Such regulations are a bottleneck for our growth. We’re not only competing with other transport companies; drivers are increasingly choosing other sectors. They are more often opting to work in construction or as taxi drivers because they no longer want to be so far from home. Belarusian and Ukrainian families are settling in Lithuania, and the men no longer want to be away for more than a month. They want to stay here in Lithuania with their families and spend the weekends with them."

"The highest number of bankruptcies is in the logistics sector," Paulauskas continues. "This means that more and more drivers are becoming available on the market, and some of them are switching to other sectors. When we enter the upward cycle of the economy, the shortage of drivers could once again cause disruptions in supply chains across Europe. So, we shouldn’t just focus on the current situation, but also consider what’s coming in the future. You’re going to need everyone you can get when the demand for road transport picks up again. And you can’t just make that happen overnight. It’s not as if people can easily switch to this kind of work. So, to ensure that, we need to think ahead. We need to consider more stability in terms of legislation and regulation, or at least understand what’s coming so we can adapt to the situation more easily."

Pain

Paulauskas: "From the outside, it might seem like training a driver is a very short process, but here in Lithuania, it takes six months before a driver is fully prepared to start driving. After that, they travel with a trainer, and only after a year can they begin working as a professional driver. So, it’s really a long process, and you can’t just do it on a whim. You have to grow, and if you want to expand in the first quarter of 2025, you need to start thinking or predicting that growth today, because it’s a lengthy process to attract and train a professional driver."

Every new regulation makes it harder to attract drivers, Paulauskas believes. "Of course, it will be difficult. Poland has its own rules as well; you can't attract many drivers from Asian and African countries there. So, it's two different stories. But I think we will find ways to attract drivers. Somehow, we will navigate where we need to go. I'm glad that we have two bases, in Poland and Lithuania, so we can choose. We can spread the challenges."

Source: NT