An interview with Oliver Schneeloch from Egala
An interview with Oliver Schneeloch from Egala about the future of the German transport market, the key trends shaping the industry, and how companies can successfully prepare for the challenges ahead.
A: I see the development as fundamentally positive. Demand for trucking services and freight volumes is rising noticeably, something we observe very concretely within our own team. What stands out in particular is the growing demand for transporting battery-electric components, alongside food and other everyday goods.
While the market as a whole is growing at a fairly moderate pace, according to the Federal Office for Logistics and Mobility, annual growth in transport performance stands at roughly 1.6 to 2.1 percent, Germany remains Europe's largest transport market, holding around 18 percent market share. To me, that signals there is still enormous potential here.
A: At the moment, we see the greatest impact coming from international crises. They are forcing us to rethink logistics entirely, both in intermodal transport and in warehousing. I firmly believe we will see a renewed focus on local logistics, along with a significantly stronger emphasis on storage and warehousing.
A second major trend is electromobility. The industry will become progressively more carbon-neutral in how it transports goods. At the same time, permissible vehicle weights are increasing substantially, vehicles will in some cases be able to carry considerably more payload going forward. Naturally, the infrastructure needs to keep pace. According to Germany's National Charging Infrastructure Control Centre, around 354 sites with a combined total of roughly 4,200 charging points specifically for heavy commercial vehicles will be needed by 2030, with the federal government supporting this expansion with approximately one billion euros.
And there is something else I think many people underestimate: a clear consolidation taking place across the market. Mid-sized, professionally run companies are the ones more likely to grow. Those who aren't set up professionally enough will find the coming years considerably tougher.
A: It matters a great deal to us that we choose the right customers, ones for whom our business model genuinely makes a meaningful difference, rather than being just another interchangeable option. We listen closely to what each customer actually needs and adapt how we work accordingly. At the same time, we are a highly digital company. We make data available to our customers and continuously refine our processes.
What matters to me personally above all is that we invest heavily in our driver systems, in wellness, and in health. Because at the end of the day, it is people who move this market, not machines. And time and again, I see just how much growth potential our customers have when they work with us. Our slogan, "Growth for everyone," isn't a marketing line to me, it's something I witness in our day-to-day business. Being able to grow without having to invest in your own fleet or stretch yourself financially makes a genuine difference for many companies.
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A: We support both large logistics providers and mid-sized companies in actually implementing market-ready solutions, not merely offering them on paper. Concretely, this means we provide vehicles for spot availability, for fast, short-notice deployment. At the same time, we use this same capacity to support our customers' long-term growth phases.
Large customers such as automotive manufacturers in particular need just-in-time deliveries and an extremely high level of reliability. That is precisely where we come in.
That said, mid-sized companies are, for us, by far the most exciting customer group. In our view, they hold enormous development potential and are what genuinely keeps the entire transport market running. This is where we provide very clear, tangible value, through personal outreach and dedicated support, through fixed, assigned dispatchers who truly know our customers, and through consistent digital documentation. In doing so, we're directly supporting the mid-market through its ongoing transformation.
A: We are growing, that much is clear. But organically, and strictly in line with actual market demand. The greatest challenge here remains driver growth. According to the BGL (German Federal Association for Road Haulage, Logistics and Waste Disposal), the driver shortage in Germany has reached a historic high, with around 120,000 unfilled positions.
For us, that translates into something very concrete: we cannot simply grow rapidly and without restraint. Doing so would mean taking already scarce drivers away from our customers and ultimately harming the wider market. That is why we grow deliberately and organically, always trying to stay one or two steps ahead of the market, without ever losing focus on vehicles, drivers, innovation, and electromobility.
Our commitment to unlimited trucking capacity does not mean pulling vehicles away from existing customers to serve new business. Quite the opposite: those who already work with us always come first. To us, "unlimited" means that our model is built to be flexible and scalable enough to build additional capacity exactly where it's genuinely needed, without ever putting existing partnerships at risk.
A: Technology plays a genuinely significant role, particularly in optimising processes and improving communication. Within freight forwarding companies, workloads are increasingly being spread across fewer employees, even as demand and the need for speed continue to grow.
What must never be forgotten, though, is that technology exists to support and relieve people, not to replace them. Fully autonomous vehicles remain very much a vision for the future; industry associations, too, expect drivers to remain indispensable for the foreseeable future, not least because they bear responsibility for the legally compliant handover of cargo.
That is why, at Egala, we place particular emphasis on the well-being of our employees. Given the driver shortage, this will only become more important than it already is. Without our people, we simply cannot move forward. Our company only functions because these people exist, and because we genuinely operate as a team.
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A: For me, it comes down to three things: proprietary technology development, specialisation, and an unwavering people-first philosophy. In the past, the market has often been shaped heavily by price competition, frequently at the expense of the people involved. We have made a deliberate choice to take a different path.
Compliance matters enormously to us, particularly when it comes to legal requirements. We never want our customers to find themselves facing fines or negative press because of how we operate. At the same time, we are continuing to expand our team across the German-speaking market, because personal contact and genuine expertise on the ground matter to us.
We do, of course, use AI-supported systems, and we will continue expanding their use going forward. But one thing is clear to me: no AI in the world comes even close to the person sitting in front of it and behind it. That is exactly where our focus lies.
Contact Oliver if you are looking for unlimited transport capacity:
Oliver Schneeloch - Business Development Manager
Mobile: +49 176 62 34 56 72
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