Premises for Truck Sharing in General Cargo Cooperatives – an Exploratory Case Study Research

The road freight transportation-industry in the German speaking countries (Germany, Austria and Switzerland) faces high market pressure. Besides a high competition between the logistic service providers, shippers are exerting pressure too (Cordes, 2018).
The market situation urges especially the small and medium enterprises to take action. This is because of their relatively small size and thereby minor possibilities than large enterprises to foster efficiency, e.g. truck-utilization (DLK, 2016). Through an innovative form to increase truck-utilization such as a sharing economy-application, an important facilitation for small and medium enterprises during the downtimes could be achieved. As the sharing economy offers various advantages such as fostering utilization of idle capacities or the reduction of the ecological footprint, these should be levered.