In road freight transport, the availability of drivers is just as critical as the fleet of vehicles in circulation and the cost of fuel. Today, the growing shortage of drivers threatens to change the rules of the industry, driving up costs, impairing service flexibility, and shifting the balance of power between carriers and their customers. All this means that companies will need to rethink how they organize their logistics networks and how they manage relationships with transportation service providers, learning to make the most of what is becoming their scarcest resource: available driving hours.
Italy’s logistics supply chain moves approximately 1.2 billion metric tons of freight over land: 92% by road and 8% by rail. The logistics sector comprises approximately 115,000 companies and employs 1.2 million people in transportation and warehousing. Italy’s logistics industry ranks third in Europe by revenue, behind Germany and France, and contributes 8.9% of national GDP.
In recent years, road freight transportation costs have surged dramatically across the main production factors: vehicles, personnel, maintenance, fuel, tolls, and so forth. Beyond these cost factors, there is a less visible but decisive constraint: finding qualified people to drive the trucks. Without a driver, even a fully fueled vehicle available for transport will remain idle. Fuel costs, currently the main factor affecting transportation expenses, have historically followed a cyclical pattern, while driver availability has turned into a structural problem.
The driver shortage is a Europe-wide predicament. According to estimates in a 2025 study by the IRU (International Road Transport Union), approximately 500,000 truck driver positions were unfilled across Europe, representing 13% of the workforce surveyed. The association also forecasts that more than 600,000 European drivers will retire by 2030. These are estimates, as we said, but they clearly illustrate how hard it is to replace people leaving the profession with new entrants.
The repercussions of this situation are already being felt.
- The first potential consequence is sustained upward pressure on freight rates . To recruit and retain employees, carriers have to offer competitive wages, cover the costs of licenses and training, and invest in drivers’ quality of life—with or without government support. These are necessary expenditures that must be reflected in contracts. This does not mean that all prices will rise at the same pace; of course, freight rates also depend on demand and competition. But it does mean that rates that don’t fully cover the cost of reliable service are becoming increasingly difficult to sustain. This in turn could have even greater implications for rate differentiation: Scheduling a regular flow of shipments may cost less than guaranteeing an urgent pickup, serving a geographically isolated route, or delivering within a very narrow time window.
- The second consequence is the risk of less flexible service . Organizing shifts with fewer employees may require earlier bookings, less frequent deliveries, and reduced capacity to handle urgent requests. Schedules could potentially be more variable during peak periods, while routes with limited freight volumes in both directions may become difficult to serve. The answer isn’t to expect drivers to absorb every unexpected disruption. What’s needed instead are shared forecasts, clear priorities for critical shipments, and inventory levels that are calibrated to realistic delivery times. According to the IRU, approximately two-thirds of the European operators surveyed in the study above have already turned down new contracts because they could not find enough drivers.
- The third consequence concerns how carriers select their customers . When drivers are scarce, not all contracts can be fulfilled with the same ease and efficiency so customers offering stable volumes, regular routes, reliable payments, and timely shared forecasts are more attractive. A delivery involving hours of waiting during loading or unloading ties up a driver, taking time away from other deliveries without creating value for anyone. Companies purchasing transportation services can help secure capacity by offering scheduled appointments, timely information, and agreements that also compensate carriers for more demanding requests. Scarcity can shift commercial relationships: Customers are no longer the only ones selecting their suppliers; carriers also assess which customers deserve their limited driving hours.
Mitigating these problems begins with rethinking the needs of the people doing the work. By funding pathways into the profession, mentoring new hires, and making shifts and homecoming schedules more predictable, companies can more effectively expand and retain their workforce. Adequate rest facilities are also essential. In fact, a European Commission study published in 2025 estimated that the EU faced a shortage of more than 390,000 spaces in safe, secure parking areas for professional drivers. But upgrading this infrastructure requires a commitment that often exceeds the resources of any single company. Addressing the problem means bringing new skills into the profession and giving today’s working drivers good reasons to stay. Shippers, logistics operators, and institutions must each do their part to tackle this systemic challenge.
Another response is industry consolidation. Larger operators can spread recruitment and training costs across several trips, reassign personnel between routes, and invest in planning systems. For a small company, by contrast, losing just a few drivers may mean having to give up customers. This could encourage mergers and the establishment of organized networks of independent owner-operators. Such an outcome is not inevitable: Small businesses can remain competitive by offering specialized services and maintaining strong local relationships. Nevertheless, collaborating with other operators can make it easier to handle demand peaks and ensure service continuity by sharing investments. Another possible future scenario is that large manufacturing or distribution companies will reconsider managing more of their transportation operations directly to secure capacity and adopt workforce management practices designed to boost employee retention.
To list some additional solutions worth considering, one is redesigning logistics networks to account for constraints on the availability of trucks and drivers. Also, the shortest route on paper is not always the one that makes the best use of a driver’s time. A regional warehouse can bring goods closer to customers; cross-docking can consolidate shipments without lengthy storage periods; and pooling among collaborating companies can improve vehicle utilization. For suitable distances and routes, intermodal transportation can shift part of the journey to rail, reserving trucks for the initial and final legs. In any case, these options must also be evaluated in terms of costs, service quality, and environmental impact, rather than presented as universally applicable solutions.
In addition to all of the above, there is room for better coordination of freight movements. In 2025, according to Eurostat, 21.8% of the kilometers traveled by road freight vehicles in the EU were driven empty. This percentage cannot be eliminated entirely, but reducing it would mean making better use of the available vehicles and workforce.
The topics covered in this article and others are addressed in the Executive Program in Operations and Supply Chain Management (in Italian).
