The haulage fintech that is doing for trucks what Uber does for people

EVERY so often, there’s a flash of light. Call it a light-bulb moment.

It’s when I realise ‘damn, why did I not have that idea?

For years now, we’ve been riding round in Ubers. They’ve become ubiquitous, fully embedded in our lives, so that the taxi’s brand name speaks for itself. They’ve got a language, a code, a way of doing things with which we’re all familiar. If someone says they’re a ‘4.91’ and you’re a ‘4.62’, you know what they mean – that they’re more courteous to the drivers than you are. In a sure sign of becoming established and success, Uber has its imitators.

Which is why, when Martin Vohánka is speaking, that I realise what he’s talking about is potentially doing for road haulage what Uber did for people, and I curse. I could have thought of that, but as ever, I didn’t.

It was obvious, really. Along with cars, vans and buses, the other main type of vehicles on our roads are lorries. Vohánka has created a ‘one-stop shop for anyone looking to transport goods by road from A to B. It’s a one-stop shop for all mobility solutions payment services and technology needs for European truckers and fleet businesses.”

Vohánka is CEO of Czech-based, FTSE250-listed Eurowag, a fuel card and mobility business, operating in the CRT, commercial road transport, sector.

It’s rolling out via a soft launch, a single European trucking digital platform. That makes Eurowag a secret fin tech, a tech disruptor, transforming the way haulage operates and making life simpler and easier for Europe’s legions of truckers.

By digitalising the industry, Eurowag will address many of the cost, administration and regulatory challenges drivers currently face. The result, he hopes, will be a more sustainable and profitable transportation sector.

“More than 90 per cent of road hauliers are small family businesses. Yet the business is complex and getting more complex. To load one truck with freight and take it on a journey abroad and bring it back again, also with a full load, can involve the driver having to complete 30 different administrative tasks, from accounting to conforming with regulations to border controls to fuelling to toll charges, and so on. Our technology will cut across all that and do it for them. Eurowag will remove that burden.

Around 20 per cent of trucks on EU roads are empty on their return trips – that’s painful financially as well as environmentally-damaging. Eurowag will match a truck and its destination so that often the hardest part of all, finding a return cargo, is made easy.

“We are dealing with a very fragmented industry – it’s fragmented because of the sheer difficulty in putting it together, but our tech enables us to do that. It’s a game-changer in terms of cost, fuel and reducing emissions – think of all those journeys that entail a lorry returning with nothing on board. It does not make sense, money-wise, fuel-wise and environment-wise, but they must do the first leg because they’re committed to it. We’ll make the whole trip much more worthwhile and more environment friendly.”

There are 9m trucks across Europe. With the new service, Vohánka is aiming to reach 1.5m. Their owners will subscribe for different levels, depending on their requirements.

“The underlying business is that people always need trucks. The industry accounts for 5 per cent of the UK’s GDP, it’s that important. But it’s very hard to enter and to negotiate your way around. We will make it simpler.” He smiles. “You could say we’re making money out of red tape.”

He wishes the market would see Eurowag for what it is, “as a fin tech that will be offering strong growth every year. We’re a new phenomenon, not easily comparable with anyone else. We’re facing an exciting future, making the trucking industry attractive again.”

In that sense, he insists, Eurowag is broader than Uber, “which is a taxi service. Our mission is to make the trucking industry cleaner, fairer and more efficient.”

It’s genius, and he makes it sound so straightforward. It’s not of course, but even so, I am left thinking, not for the first time, ‘what if, what if…’