As international transportation develops, being a multimodal transport operator has been added to the traditional role of freight forwarding companies, and thanks to this, they face new challenges and bigger responsibilities.
As the definition goes, transport and logistics companies that operate as multimodal transporters, are not only agents, they are also primarily responsible for the coordination and the management of shipments, transshipments and various methods involved along the way.Therefore, there are some factors to be taken into account when providing multimodal transportation services:
First of all, since the freight forwarder is responsible for the monitoring of the entire shipping process, from a physical and administrative point of view, it is essential to have a reliable network of international agents, who can provide an optimized and successful transport service.
Communication is another factor of key importance. In a network of agents, the parties involved have constant tasks, such as verification, transfer, reception, processing and presentation of a huge amount of information related to the cargo, the transportation and the payment. Especially for this reason, multimodal transport operators need to be able to track the cargo and control its flow, so developing a reliable communication system is quite essential.
Another essential aspect multimodal service providers need to pay special attention to is to encorporate human resources, highly specialized in international shipping, that are able to organize and coordinate all necessary stages in order to ensure cargo and transport conformity with regulations, imposed by different entities involved in the entire transit process.
Multimodal transportation is a complex and highly demanding service, there is no doubt about that, and it needs to have a combination of three things as its base at all times: an experienced team, effective communication and good international relationships, in order to provide the best service possible, and satisfy the expectation of clients.
Related articles:
What is Multimodal Transport
Transportation and Logistics Management: The Great Challenges
Rui Pinto is the COO of Multicargo, supervising all the day-to-day operations of the company and contributing to the development of new services and solutions, customized to the clients’ needs. He has been an employee of Multicargo since its establishment in 2010.
