Published research
Road freight lane briefs
What real European road freight lanes actually cost, rebuilt element by element from fuel, driver, toll, asset and waiting cost — and set against the quotes carriers gave for the same work. Every figure is traceable to a stated input.
What is a should-cost model in road freight?
A should-cost model rebuilds what a transport movement ought to cost from its underlying cost drivers — fuel consumption and price, driver hours and labour base, tolls and crossings, vehicle depreciation, maintenance, insurance, overhead and margin — rather than observing what the market is currently paying. It is a bottom-up cost model, not a rate index.
In freight procurement the distinction matters. A rate benchmark tells a buyer where they sit against other shippers. A should-cost model tells them whether the price in front of them is explained by the cost of doing the work. The first supports a market argument; the second supports a cost argument, and it works on lanes with too little transaction data to benchmark at all.
The briefs
How much will German road freight cost in 2027?
No single number: +3.4% for last-mile portfolios, +2.6% for long haul, against a 2.7% CPI consensus. Why driver time rather than kilometres sets the increase, and what a flat CPI budget costs per €10m of spend.
What does a Nuremberg–Birmingham Mega trailer actually cost?
Should-cost €2,921 per trip against four RFQ quotes spanning €2,875 to €3,950. Full cost breakdown, sensitivity testing, detention cost and the questions that follow.
If there is a lane, corridor or country cost base you would find useful, say so — it may well be next.
How the numbers are produced
Figures come from the Frintelis should-cost engine, using operator-entered lane inputs against a frozen European reference set covering fuel, labour, toll, asset, maintenance and overhead cost. Routing is OpenStreetMap / Valhalla on a truck profile, so distances, border crossings and toll segments reflect a road a 40-tonne vehicle can legally take.
The model is deterministic. Identical inputs return an identical result, every element traces back to a stated assumption, and the reference basis is dated. That is what makes a figure usable in a tender file rather than merely interesting.
Need this for your own lanes?
1 — Frintelis, the platform
Model your own lanes, run sensitivity testing, export briefs like these for your tender file. Currently in an invitation-only pilot.
2 — Advisory: tender and cost-model support
Independent support for European road freight procurement, delivered by the person who built the engine behind these notes.
Gyorgy Sike — twenty years in logistics network design and transport category management across European manufacturing. Currently responsible for transport strategy and cost transparency across a 30+ site European production network. Previously Global Logistics Category Manager at Norsk Hydro's extrusion business, running tender programmes delivering 13–21% cost reduction across five European markets — and where the first road freight TCO models behind Frintelis were built. Earlier network design and lowest-landed-cost modelling at iQor and Jabil, covering forward and reverse flows across Europe and the Americas. MSc Economics (international trade and the EU), University of Miskolc.
- RFQ and tender support — should-cost positions for your lane set before quotes come in, and a structured read of the field once they do.
- Cost model build — a bespoke should-cost or cost-to-serve model for your network, equipment mix and labour bases, handed over so your team owns it.
- Budget and rate forecasting — cost-driver-based planning figures for the coming budget year rather than last year's rate plus an index.
- Quote review and negotiation preparation — element-by-element reconciliation of carrier offers, and the questions that hold up in the room.
- Carrier portfolio and tendering frameworks — governance, evaluation structure and benchmarking for fragmented multi-site networks.
Scope. Road freight, Europe. Full truckload and groupage, multi-site manufacturing and distribution networks. Not ocean, air or parcel.
Independent. Not a 4PL, not a broker, no carrier commissions and no revenue share on savings. The only thing being sold is the analysis.
Engagements are scoped to a single tender cycle or a defined lane set, remote across Europe. Working languages: English and Hungarian, German at working level. Get in touch and we can work out whether it fits.