Hanan Fridman, founder of Trucknet Enterprises, is actively involved in the State of Israel’s Fuel Substitutes and Smart Transportation Development Program. Fridman spoke to a February 19 Middle East Forum Podcast (video). The following summarizes his comments:
The Middle East is beset by intractable security challenges that are only managed by those nimble enough to develop alternatives. Trucknet is a key player in forging a land bridge alternative to the international shipping lanes through the Red Sea that are threatened by the Houthis’ missiles. Thirty percent of global shipping which passes from the Bab al Mandeb Strait through the Suez Canal now has a ground-based option to transport goods from the west to the east. A startup based in Israel’s southern port of Eilat, Trucknet also has offices in Tel Aviv and in cities in Eastern and Western Europe.
The company created a platform to address the inefficiencies in the transportation industry and make the process sustainable. It was accomplished by using smart transportation technology to analyze data. The analysis revealed that trucks on the road were hauling only 70 percent of their load capacity. Empty miles occur when a truck unloads cargo at a destination and travels empty to another cargo pick-up point on its route. Trucknet technology has stepped in to fill the 30 percent that is empty by “smart matching” these trucks with available non-military cargo.
At present, the most expensive alternative to shipping goods through the Red Sea is via air. The other way is via ship around the southern tip of Africa from China and the Far East to Europe, which takes 45-50 days. If China chooses to move its cargo by land to avoid the dangers ships face in the Red Sea, it will take nearly half the time, or an average of 25 days, via the land bridge route. The cost savings resulting from reduced travel time has brought the cost of shipping goods via the land bridge route more in line with the costs of water-borne shipping that have recently increased due to the heightened danger. Trucknet’s vision of eliminating the empty mile has narrowed the cost premium of the land bridge route over shipping by sea from 20 percent to 12 – 15 percent.
A ship from China would sail to the United Arab Emirates (UAE)'s Jebel Ali port in Dubai and transfer its cargo to trucks that then travel across Saudi Arabia to Jordan’s King Hussein Bridge (a.k.a. Allenby Bridge). From there, the trucks travel to Israel’s Haifa port, where the cargo sails to Europe in 10 days. The port of Haifa is just one “point on the map” from where the cargo continues to Europe and beyond.
Currently, the capacity of the land bridge route is only 350 trucks per day. Even if the traffic increases beyond this number, the potential for additional trucks is limited because much of the 30 percent of global sea shipping that passes through the Suez Canal, which benefits Egypt’s economy, will not transit through Israel. Therefore, it is not realistic to expect the express line option via the land bridge to handle much more of the cargo that currently passes through Suez.
The business opportunities for the Middle Eastern countries that are collaborating on the land bridge initiative have been exceedingly rare in the past because of politics. The Abraham Accords cleared way for a “new Middle East” with the “option to move goods from side to side.”
Although truck transport is superior to ship transport in terms of emissions since ships emit huge amounts of greenhouse gasses, it is not the ultimate solution. The ideal vision for the future of land bridge transportation is an electric train, which will transport goods from Dubai to the Haifa port in two days.
“My dream is that the Middle East is going to be like Europe,” without internal borders, similar to the Schengen area where European Union (EU) citizens and non-EU nationals staying legally in the EU can travel freely and safely without being subject to border checks. “I think that everyone that live[s] in the Middle East [has] a dream that ... terror is going to finish, and we can open all the land.”
