Freight transport – actively searching for professional truck drivers worldwide

Measures such as the empowerment of women and the use of driving simulators will serve as incentives to increase the number of professional drivers of heavy vehicles.

With the outbreak of COVID-19, a number of strategic sectors had to duplicate their workload to ensure our survival. Freight transport is an example. The sector was not only responsible for transporting essential goods such as the food that made its way into our refrigerators. It was also responsible for providing the healthcare workers with PPE, medicines and – right now – the long-awaited vaccines.

Surprisingly, this industry with so many business opportunities is suffering from a lack of professional drivers capable of transporting their containers. If we look at the case of the European Union, there are currently 6.6 million trucks and a shortage of more than 150,000 professional drivers to drive them, according to the International Road Transport Union. This is what has led different countries around the world to implement policy packages to encourage an increase in the number of truck drivers. From programmes that seek to empower women in Chile and Colombia, where the highest number of women in the transport sector in the region has been recorded (around 17%), to increasing the salaries of their drivers. Or buying trucks that ensure a more comfortable and safe experience using the latest safety and driver assistance technologies.

One of the most interesting and innovative measures is found in Mexico, where our technology partners the ANTP Asociación Nacional de Transporte Privado (Mexican Association of Private Transportation and their partner) MAF aim to respond to the lack of trained drivers by means of a cutting-edge project: A mobile classroom with a state-of-the-art heavy vehicle simulator, the development and implementation of which has once again been entrusted to Lander. The simulator will be installed in a container, which can be transported around the country with a tractor unit. This will not only benefit each ANTP member by offering professional simulator training in situ in their own premises. It also means that any Mexican company requiring professionally trained drivers will be able to benefit from using the classroom. In this way, Mexico and the region will be closer to obtaining the number of drivers necessary to supply us with essential products and services.