Turkey’s Importance Will Increase
Founded seven years ago in Istanbul, TIRPORT continues to develop itself in the logitech field. TIRPORT, the logitech company with the highest business potential and the power to transform the industry, manages over 4,500 FTL (Full Truck Load) per day with over 120 thousand truck members. Demonstrating that solution-oriented technological applications are more effective than traditional logistics companies, TIRPORT runs an operation larger than Turkey’s largest logistics company with 80 employees. Akın Arslan, CEO of TIRPORT, emphasizes the increasing importance of Turkey in logistics as follows: “Turkey’s position as a bridge between Asia and Europe, and its strategic importance in the Central Logistics Corridor, which has been going on since the past with the Silk Road, makes us valuable as a country. Turkey’s ports, east-west, north-south transportation axes have become more important. For this reason, there is an obvious increase in logistics investment appetites. The ongoing Ukraine-Russia War has shifted freight traffic from the China-Kazakhstan route to Europe to the Central Logistics Corridor, including the TransCaspian route from the north. Transit traffic on this axis will continue to increase exponentially in the coming years. Short and medium-term storage needs in Turkey will also increase. It can be predicted that the current commercial storage capacity of around 15 million square meters may increase by at least 10 million square meters in the next six to seven years. At least 10 billion dollars of warehousing investments await Turkey in the next 10 years.”
Arslan points out that if Turkey manages to become Europe’s nearshore production base, a major production and export offensive can begin with foreign direct investments of 30-40 billion dollars per year, which will rapidly increase exports to 500 billion dollars within four years and reach 1 trillion dollars within 10 years.
It manages all transportation processes of TIRPORT end-to-end digitally, provides real-time location-based reporting on the journey of the cargo, and ensures safe transportation. Our technologies enable the management of over 4,500 FTL (Full Truck Load) transports per day in over 20 countries in eight languages. As a new generation logistics player and digital forwarder, it aims to be the most important digital platform for 1.5 million truckers to reach freight quickly in the next five years, managing over 30 thousand EFT/LTL (Less Truck Load) transports per day on the logistics axis stretching from Asia to Europe and Africa. TIRPORT is one of the leading digital forwarders in the world with over 120 thousand member truckers and over 5 thousand member SMEs.
Underlining the support of logistics technologies to the concept of sustainability, Akın Arslan, CEO of TIRPORT, said: “Approximately one third of the trucks on the road have to drive empty. This causes tens of thousands of tons of CO2 to be released into the nature every day in vain. In the coming period, there will be green agreements and regulations that will increase the use of green energy such as electricity and hydrogen in transportation. TIRPORT optimizes turning loads with augmented intelligence-supported technologies, significantly reducing the rate at which trucks return empty. We strengthen our position as a sustainable company with accreditations on platforms such as Global Ecovadis.”
Stating that the biggest problem of the sector in Turkey is the lack of working capital, which threatens business continuity, Akın Arslan said: “Even Turkey’s largest logistics companies carry out 80-90 percent of their nearly 3,000 daily FTL operations with individual trucks they procure from transportation websites and cooperatives in the spot market. On the other hand, the trucker cannot receive his progress payment in advance upon load delivery. Logistics companies, on the other hand, have difficulty in carrying out operations that they cannot fund for at least 60 days. A logistics company that delivers 100 trucks a day needs at least 60 million liras of working capital. A company that operates a thousand trucks a day needs to fund 600 million liras to turn this business around. Conditions and survival are getting harder. “
This interview was published in the 30th issue of Para Magazine dated July 30 – August 05, 2023.