Porti & ambiente — le notizie raccolte

For years, last-mile delivery was treated mainly as a routing problem: plan the stops, get the truck out, hope the day holds together. Pete Elmgren, President and COO ofDispatchTrack, argues that view is now too narrow. In an interview withThe Loadstar, he said the pressure on operators is coming from several directions at once. Customers expect tighter windows and better updates. Retailers, manufacturers and 3PLs are trying to protect margin. And every missed delivery, poor handover or inefficient route now shows up quickly in cost, capacity and customer satisfaction. “There are inefficiencies in terms of how customers and partners are gathering data to make smarter, more intelligent decisions,” Elmgren said. “The other piece is around the manual and legacy routing that a lot of companies still use today.” The third problem is communication. Phone calls alone are no longer enough. Operators now need text, email, chat, live tracking, delivery photos and exception updates to sit in the same workflow rather than being scattered across teams and systems. DispatchTrack started more than 16 years ago in furniture and appliances, but has since moved into building supplies, food and beverage, medical supplies and other sectors where delivery is complex and costly to fix when it goes wrong. Elmgren said the company’s pitch is built around the data it has collected over that time. In a market where almost every logistics software provider is talking about AI, he argued the useful question is not whether a product has an AI label, but whether it has enough operational data to make the tool work in the field. “We’ve been in business for over 16 years, and so we’ve been collecting data,” he said. “We’ve been doing machine learning for over 16 years.” DispatchTrack groups its AI work into machine learning, agentic AI and generative AI. Its Driver AI product is aimed at stop-level details that often make or break a delivery: gate codes, parking instructions, construction-site access and apartment layouts. DT Agent is used for order-status questions, rescheduling and delivery timing. The parcel market has trained customers to expect visibility. Elmgren said those expectations have moved into heavier and less predictable delivery categories, including appliances, HVAC units, medical products and building materials that often requirewhite-glove delivery. “The expectations have increased dramatically,” he said. “That expectation has now transferred to the business world.” That does not make a two-person appliance delivery the same as a parcel drop. Installation, paperwork, compliance, product testing, photos, billing and settlements can all sit around the delivery itself. But the customer still wants to know when the product is coming, whether the driver is close and what happens if the job changes. Driver availability remains disputed in logistics. Some operators describe a shortage; others say the industry has a pay, retention or working-conditions problem. Elmgren framed it as a shortage of qualified labour, particularly for more demanding delivery environments. Either way, DispatchTrack’s argument is that operators have to get more out of the drivers and dispatchers they already have. Elmgren said the aim might be moving a driver from eight stops a day to 10 without damaging the delivery experience. “You’ve got to create that loyalty, and that loyalty comes through that really good customer experience,” he said. He added that customers moving from manual to automated routing have seen efficiency gains “well in the 20 to 30%” range. Peak planning is another use case for DispatchTrack’s data. Elmgren pointed to the company’s strategic planner, which helps customers model capacity around seasonal demand, promotions and category-specific surges that may not follow the usual fourth-quarter pattern. Existing customers can use their own performance and order history. Newer customers can lean on industry and sub-industry patterns. “If you’re doing these things, we’ve seen this before,” he said. Elmgren also sees new routing variables entering the mix, including warehouse management needs for 3PLs and alternative vehicle types. EVs, for example, bring questions around range, charging time and fuel economics. For DispatchTrack, the differentiator is that the last mile is no longer only about getting the route right; it’s become about coordinating the route, the warehouse, the driver, the customer and the exception when the original plan breaks. That may sound less tidy than a simple routing pitch, but it is much closer to the way delivery days actually unfold.

Have container shipping lines simply become too big to fail? Thenews todaythat the 10 largest container carriers now control 84.7% of global shipping capacity – just 0.1% off the all-time record of January 2021 – ought to be deeply concerning to shippers and logistics executives, especially those trying to build the rather ethereal notion of resiliency into their container supply chains. Talk to shippers and forwarders on the Asia-Europe trades today, for example, who are staring at full bookings for the next month and rapidly escalating freight rates, whether under contract or not, and one overriding theme stands out – a lack of options. With capacity on the trade effectively fully employed until the end of this month, BCOs are seeing their allocations cut and are going to forwarders in search of alternative capacity. But most forwarders are, figuratively and literally, in the same boat: they are as constrained as their customers and capacity is incredibly scarce, unless they are prepared to pay above the market rates and possibly veer into loss-making territory. What makes it even more a carriers’ market today is the alliance system – a large portion of that 84.7% capacity market share is deployed on the main east-west trades as part of one of four liner groupings. Under anti-cartel regulations, carriers are forbidden from discussing freight rates, but when capacity is as highly utilised as it is currently, any discussions about vessel deployment are intrinsically linked to how pricing evolves. In today’s market, we all know what would happen if, say, an Asia-Europe service were blanked next week: prices on the remaining sailings would rise, and most likely sharply, while named account allocations could be cut in favour of higher-paying spot rate cargo – and so on… This is not to directly accuse carriers of market manipulation – all markets have cycles, and we are where we are – but the alliance system was given regulatory approval in the belief it would allow lines to operate in a “stable” market… but with so much of container shipping’s assets in the hands of so few operators – and so much of the world relying on their services – the current surge in rates suggests this market is anything but stable.

MSC has become the first container shipping line to command a global liner market share of more than 20%, on the back of an extraordinary fleet expansion programme, in place since the pandemic. According to new analysis from Alphaliner, by the end of May, the world’s largest shipping line operated 21.5% of all capacity on the water, after seeing its fleet size effectively double over the past 15 years. “No carrier has ever achieved such a quota, with the only other to come close, Maersk, achieving 19.3% of the market in 2018,” Alphaliner writes today. “Geneva-based MSC continues to eat into the market share of other lines, and it was the only top-ten carrier to reach a high in its market share this year. “The world’s largest container carrier has effectively doubled its market share since 2010,” it adds. Source: Alphaliner MSC’s recent strategy has stood in stark contrast to that of second-ranked Maersk, which for the past couple of years has signalled that its global fleet capacity of around 4.2m teu had hit a self-imposed ceiling. However, Alphaliner also notes that this means Maersk’s market share today is at its lowest for 20 years, at 13.7% of globally operated capacity – “the lowest point since the Danish group bought P&O Nedlloyd in 2005″. “Maersk’s deliberate decision to cap its fleet at 4.1m teu-4.3m teu from early 2024, combined with the relentless growth in the overall container fleet, has condemned the company to a falling market share. The analyst noted: “The Danish carrier said it would prioritise decarbonised fleet replacement and integrated logistics to achieve its strategic and financial objectives.” However, according to Alahaliner, Maersk’s operated capacity stands at just under 4.7m teu, with 1.84m teu of that being chartered; MSC’s overall capacity is just under 7.4m teu. Third-placed CMA CGM, which operates 4.3m teu of capacity, also saw its market share decline marginally, from a high of 12.9% in 2023 to 12.5% today. However, the ten largest container lines have consolidated their grip on the global liner trades, and their combined operating capacity is within touching distance of the previous record, of controlling 84.8% of capacity, achieved in January 2021 – in the depths of the pandemic. “Nearly 500,000 teu in newbuilding tonnage was handed over to the top ten carriers in the December-April (2026) period. This tonnage injection has pushed the carriers’ fleet capacity to 84.7% of the total market at end May, just 0.1% shy of the record,” Alphaliner writes. “The rise was mainly driven by capacity increases for MSC, CMA CGM, and Ocean Network Express (ONE).”

The air cargo industry risks being unprepared for the next wave of time- and temperature-sensitive products. The warning came as DSV is expanding its Air ThermoDirect product with a dedicated corridor between Luxembourg and Indianapolis, both major pharma supply chain hubs, to transport temperature-sensitive pharmaceuticals. It claimed the service aimed to reduce cost, emissions, and handling complexity and improve end-to-end cold-chain control. “By minimising time spent in uncontrolled environments and removing the complexity of active containers, Air ThermoDirect will help pharmaceutical companies protect product integrity while lowering total cost, emissions and operational uncertainty across critical lanes,” said DSV. The move comes as the air cargo industry is at risk of being unprepared for a coming wave of personalised medicines that will require radically different handling procedures from traditional pharmaceutical shipments,The Loadstarwas told on the sidelines of TIACA’s recent Executive Summit in Warsaw. Pharma.Aero secretary general Frank Van Gelder said the industry was still largely focused on established pharmaceutical products, overlooking the logistics implications of emerging treatments, such as cell and gene therapies and radioligands. “The current processes in place for big pharma don’t work for these products,” he said. Unlike traditional pharmaceutical shipments, many new therapies are highly time- and temperature-sensitive and extremely valuable, requiring rapid transport, full visibility, and multiple contingency plans. “It needs faster, short lead times, customs need to be aligned, 100% traceability, 100% visibility, plan B, plan C, plan D,” he explained. Indeed, DSV argued that “successful healthcare logistics” were no longer defined by access to capacity alone, but by “control, consistency, and true end-to-end ownership”. Mr Van Gelder said while many of these new therapies remained in clinical trials, the industry should not dismiss them as a niche market. He pointed to advances in oncology, including personalised treatments and new therapies that can significantly extend survival rates for diseases with historically poor outcomes. “We know that, finally, this pipeline is going to commercialise,”he added. The challenge for air cargo, delegates heard, is that future pharmaceutical flows would become increasingly diverse, with traditional vaccines and medicines moving alongside specialised therapies that each had unique handling requirements. “What you will get is a way more complex supply chain, and that is because the treatments are so different,” he said. The changes could have major implications for airlines, airports, and ground handlers, particularly as some products present additional operational challenges. Mr Van Gelder cited radioligands, targeted radioactive treatments used in cancer care, as one example. “Can you imagine filling a belly of a widebody aircraft with 20 radioactive shipments? That’s a very big challenge.” As a result, he believes, the sector may need to rethink how pharmaceutical cargo is handled at airports. “You almost need to go to a what I would call ‘commodity-specific’ ground handling,”he said. But he warned that much of the industry remained focused on current pharmaceutical traffic rather than preparing for the next generation of treatments before they become mainstream. “I think they’re very perceptive to this, but I think most of the stakeholders in the supply chain of air cargo, especially in airports, are not yet so busy with it, thinking it is still far away.”

Il 14 giugno, nella sala conferenze Lo Quarter di Alghero, studiosi, ricercatori e studenti si confronteranno sui benefici dello sport outdoor per la salute, nel convegno nazionale "Attività motoria e sportiva in ambiente naturale - Uniss 2026", organizzato dall'Università di Sassari.L'iniziativa riunirà docenti, ricercatori e ricercatrici, esperti provenienti da numerosi atenei italiani, tra cui l'Università di Sassari, "G. d'Annunzio" di Chieti-Pescara, Padova, Roma "Foro Italico", l'Università della Calabria, Cassino e del Lazio Meridionale, oltre a studiosi e professionisti afferenti a numerose altre sedi e realtà di ricerca nazionali.L'incontro sarà articolato in una serie di relazioni scientifiche dedicate alle opportunità offerte dagli ambienti naturali per la pratica delle attività motorie e sportive.Particolare attenzione sarà rivolta alle caratteristiche del territorio sardo e del patrimonio ambientale italiano, mettendo in evidenza il ruolo che tali contesti possono svolgere nella promozione della salute, del benessere psicofisico e della qualità della vita.Sono attesi circa 150 partecipanti, tra ricercatori, studiosi provenienti da università italiane e straniere e studenti dei corsi di laurea in Scienze motorie delle Università di Sassari e Cagliari.Il programma prevede anche alcune attività pratiche dedicate alla promozione dello sport in ambiente naturale. Nel pomeriggio del 13 giugno si svolgerà un evento di orienteering urbano nel centro storico di Alghero, coordinato dalla Federazione italiana sport orientamento. Nella mattinata di domenica 15 giugno , invece, la spiaggia di Porto Ferro ospiterà una surf activity organizzata in collaborazione con la Federazione italiana surfing, sci nautico e wakeboard (Fissw). Riproduzione riservata © Copyright ANSA Da non perdere Condividi

South Korean flagship carrier HMM wants to rebuild its intra-Asia shipping business, and is expanding its feeder fleet to pursue volumes. When long-haul container freight rates peaked during Covid, HMM shifted a large portion of its shipping capacity from the China-South-east Asia trades to the transpacific and Europe routes, to provide extra slots for South Korean exporters facing logistical difficulties. This saw HMM’s market share in intra-Asia shipping shrink to 0.5%, compared with 5% on the transpacific and Asia-Europe lanes. HMM now has 22 feeder ships on order, comprising 10 at 2,800 teu commissioned at HD Hyundai Heavy Industries in March; as well as seven 3,000 teu ships and five at 1,800 teu under construction at Huanghai Shipbuilding in China. Deliveries of these 22 ships are due to be completed by 2029, allowing HMM to re-establish its intra-Asia presence. In the meantime, this month HMM purchased two 1,956 teu newbuild resales from Fontek Manufactory, for $33.5m each. The vessels, to be delivered this year and next, are being built at Zhejiang Tenglong Shipbuilding. In January, HMM appointed Choi Young-soon as its head of South-east Asia, managing around 500 employees across 10 countries, based in Singapore. The Trump administration’s trade tensions with China have resulted in global tariffs, causing manufacturers to diversify from China and to other emerging regions, especially in South-east Asia, where the region’s share of HMM’s container volume has grown to 17%, from 11% in 2020. An HMM spokesperson toldThe Loadstarbroadening its intra-Asia network was part of the company’s mid-to-long term growth strategy. “We’re implementing a “hub-and-spoke” model to launch new routes to regions such as Africa, and we are focusing on securing stable new demand within the South-east Asian market,” she said. According to Container Trades Statistics (CTS), intra-Asia volumes for the first four months of the year stood at 16.6m teu, a 10% increase on the first four months of 2025. Source: Container Trades Statistics Meanwhile, intra-Asia spot freight rates have soared since the onset of the Iran conflict, asThe Loadstarpreviously reported, with Drewry’s Intra-Asia Container Index on 29 May showing average intra-Asia rates up 7% above the previous fortnight, at $1,008 per 40ft, a year-on-year increase of 54%.

Indian shippers using container terminals at Nhava Port (JNPA) have won some respite from penalties on containers they had been unable to evacuate on time, due to recent truck capacity shortages and yard congestion. JNPA has agreed to grant a flat 50% waiver on ground rent charges for import containers that overstayed because of the logjam. Typically, port ground rent comes into play after eight free-storage days. The authority said import boxes that landed in the wharf on or after 1 May and gated out on or before 20 June would quality for the relief. “Due to a shortage of trailer drivers during April-May, CFSs [container freight stations] and DPD [direct port delivery] importers were unable to evacuate import containers in a timely manner, causing inventory build-up and extended container dwell inside port terminals,” JNPA said. “ln recognition of the hardship caused to importers – though the responsibility for evacuation rests with CFSs and factory/business owners –JNPA has decided to offer the relief,” it added. The move follows growing pressure from industry groups and stakeholder interventions with government-level shipping policymakers, mainly officials at the Ministry of Shipping. While welcoming the relief announcement, trade stakeholders are seeking long-term structural improvements at the port to handle any kind of volume surges from seasonal patterns or unexpected events. “Addressing the root cause is more critical than compensating for the consequence,” one industry source toldThe Loadstar. JNPA in March implemented a raft of concessions in storage and other tariffs for containers stranded in the harbour as a result of Middle East shipping service suspensions. Adani Ports’ Mundra Port similarly responded with tariff relief for affected Persian Gulf trades following government directives. Inland service pressure has also been a major concern at Mundra in recent weeks, resulting from truck driver shortages and rail cargo evacuation issues. But any kind of demurrage relief there for imports remains elusive, according to industry sources. Last week, container train operators (CTOs) escalated their frustration at managing cargo movement out of Mundra in an increasingly difficult environment. Concerns ranged from their inability to operate trains at targeted loading plans, due to congested marshalling yards and poor train placements by authorities, including for double-stack operations. “Despite having engaged with the port regularly, CTOs have been unable to find any sustained relief to our problems,” the Association of Container Train Operators (ACTO) complained. “We remain willing to engage with the Adani team to resolve issues, but in the absence of any positive response will be forced to consider stronger action at our end including reserving our rights to withhold port dues that are resulting for no fault of our own,” it warned. Meanwhile, container volumes at JNPA have gained stronger pace in the past two months, thanks to higher transhipment cargo handling linked to Middle East-linked diversions, data indicates. The port’s combined April/May throughput was up 13% year on year, to 1.5m teu, according to the data.

Europe may have produced some of freight tech’s most ambitious start-ups, but building them into global giants remains a difficult challenge. For David Nothacker, chief executive of German digital forwarding platform Sennder, the issue is not a lack of ideas, founders, or early-stage capital. It is what happens when those companies need to scale. “I would differentiate a little bit between early-stage… and growth-stage capital,” he toldThe Loadstar. “On the early-stage side, Europe still offers very attractive opportunities for young founders.” But once companies reach Series B or C, he said, “capital becomes more difficult to access”, largely because there are “very few European funds that invest into growth”. That forces many European freight-tech companies to look across the Atlantic. And in a tougher funding environment, US investors often have a simpler choice. “When American funds have an option to invest into a US company and a European company in a difficult market environment… there is a tendency to allocate capital more to the US firms,” said Mr Nothacker. The reason, he argued, is not simply national bias. It is also the exit environment. US tech companies currently offer clearer paths to IPO or other liquidity events, making it easier for investors to see how and when they might get their money back. “In Europe, we’re missing capital for growth companies,” he said. Freight tech is not a cheap market in which to scale. Logistics is operationally complex, geographically fragmented, and often slow to adopt new systems. Unlike pure software, digital freight businesses frequently need people, local relationships, carrier networks, and working capital, as well as technology. Sennder itself has reached significant scale, following its acquisition of CH Robinson’s European surface transportation business, which saw its revenues rise from about €700m to some €1.4bn now. Mr Nothacker says the business is not currently raising equity. The focus instead, he said, was on working capital optimisation. But his comments point to a broader problem for Europe’s digital logistics sector. During the Covid-era boom, cheap capital helped fuel excitement around digital freight models. That period has now ended. “Digital models were benefiting from the cheap capital,” he said. “That changed over time… capital is more expensive.” The result is a market in which investors now expect a much clearer link between what companies spend and what they get back. “Now we live in a reality where the capital allocation is much more mindful,” Mr Nothacker said. That shift is being felt across the sector. FreightSuite, a UK start-up building an AI-native alternative to CargoWise, has raised about $4.6m and is preparing a Series A round. Its founders have also been spending time in Austin, Texas, citing interest from both US customers and venture capital. Beacon, which began life as a digital forwarder before pivoting into a pure software and data platform, has also looked to US capital. CEO Fraser Robinson said its lead investor, 8VC, is based in Texas, adding that many San Francisco investors relocated to Austin during Covid, creating a growing tech investment ecosystem there. Mr Robinson, who has raised capital in both the US and Europe, said the UK and Europe were “definitely more difficult”, although he stressed there were still strong investors locally. The issue, he said, was that, beyond a relatively tight group of specialist venture investors, the ecosystem “tails off pretty quickly”. For Mr Nothacker, the funding gap is only one part of the problem. Europe itself is harder to scale. A US logistics start-up can often grow in one large market, with one language, one broad commercial culture, and a more unified customer base. Europe is different: freight remains highly national, relationship-driven, and operationally local. “A French customer wants to have a French point of contact, and a Polish carrier wants to have a Polish point of contact,” he said. “In the US, it’s much easier.” That fragmentation affects everything: go-to-market strategy; account management; carrier onboarding; and customer adoption. It also means companies often need to customise their model country by country, adding cost and slowing expansion. This, Mr Nothacker argued, helped explain why European freight-tech markets often produce fewer scaled winners. In the US, investors may be willing to back second, third or fourth players in a category if they believe the model has been validated. In Europe, he said, once one company has raised heavily, rivals are often asked how they can compete with the best-funded player. “You need to be ahead of the curve in Europe,” he said. “In the US, you can be number three, four, five, and certainly have good access to capital.” The difficulty is compounded by the nature of logistics itself. Many digital freight start-ups discovered that product-market fit was harder than expected. Companies that began with pure software sometimes found that customers did not use the product in daily operations, while others narrowed their focus to specific use cases, making them harder to scale. Technology adoption, Mr Nothacker said, remained one of the biggest barriers in road freight. Sennder initially thought customers and carriers would shift more naturally towards apps and digital workflows. Instead, it found that many still preferred phone calls and emails until the company had enough volume and relevance to make platform adoption worthwhile. Scale gives companies the data needed to optimise pricing and capacity, as well as the commercial weight to change behaviour. The broader conclusion is uncomfortable for European freight tech. The region has the founders, the problems, and the customers. What it lacks is the combination of deep growth capital, unified markets, and exit pathways that allow companies to scale at US speed. The irony is that the opportunity remains large. AI, automation, and data-driven logistics are now central to the future of forwarding, brokerage, and transport management. But turning those ideas into global companies may require more than better software. It may require Europe to solve its scaling problem first.

On Monday afternoon, some 230 software developers, QA testers, project managers, and business analysts across five Expeditors offices in Washington State were called into meetings and told their positions were being eliminated. The layoffs hit Expeditors’ Global Technology Department across offices in downtown Seattle, Bellevue, Lynnwood, Federal Way, and Airway Heights, near Spokane. By Tuesday morning, Expeditors (EXPD) had confirmed the scale of the layoffs in a notice filed with the Washington State Employment Security Department under the state’s WARN ...