This article presents six levers that cut costs without degrading service, then a method to calculate what your transport really costs you.
Why transport deserves dedicated management
Transport is generally the largest item in logistics costs. In the United States, it accounts for 64.4% of companies’ logistics costs, compared with 28.4% for inventory carrying1.
On the carrier side, the price you pay reflects a well-known cost structure. For a long-distance articulated truck, the French road freight committee (CNR) uses the following weightings in 2026: driver 29.5%, diesel 20.9%, equipment 14.0%, overheads 13.9%, maintenance 8.6%, travel expenses 6.7% and infrastructure 6.4%2.
The practical consequence: a carrier cannot cut its prices for long without cutting its own costs. Lasting gains therefore come from what the shipper changes in the way it ships: fill rate, consolidation, anticipation, choice of mode. These are also the levers that cut costs without affecting lead times.
1SCDigest, CSCMP State of Logistics Report 2025
2CNR, Historique des pondérations indiciaires TRM 2026 (French road freight index weightings)
The 6 transport optimization levers
1. Pool and consolidate shipments
Grouping several orders from the same customer, the same area or the same day makes it possible to move from parcel shipments, expensive per kilo, to consolidated or part-load shipments. Pooling can also be done with other shippers delivering to the same areas. The condition: set delivery days by area, known to customers, rather than shipping as orders come in.
2. Choose the right carrier for each flow
There is no “best carrier”, only a best carrier per flow. Parcel carriers for small packages, chartering for full loads, regional specialists for certain areas. Top-performing shippers compare rate cards carrier by carrier, on their own actual shipments, not on a standard shipment. They also measure service quality (delays, damage, disputes) so that a low rate does not hide a cost of poor quality.
3. Plan to avoid express shipping
Unplanned express shipping is one of the most expensive and least tracked items. It almost always stems from an upstream problem: an order processed late, a stockout discovered at the last minute, a pickup cut-off that is too early. Anticipating volumes, aligning the picking cut-off time with the pickup time and tracking the rate of unplanned express shipments every month are quick wins.
4. Fill each shipment better
A half-empty pallet is invoiced like a full one, and a partly loaded truck costs almost as much as a full one. Optimizing palletization, packing and the loading plan increases the volume carried for the same price. Watch out for chargeable weight too: a light but bulky parcel is invoiced on its volumetric weight.
5. Reduce empty miles
In the European Union, around one fifth of the kilometers driven by heavy goods vehicles are driven empty3. These empty returns are built into prices. A shipper that can offer return freight, regular flows or flexible pickup windows obtains better terms, because it helps the carrier fill its trucks.
6. Audit invoices and index rates
A well-negotiated rate card is useless if it is not applied. Zone, weight, fuel surcharge or extras errors: freight invoice auditing is one of the most direct transport cost reduction levers. At the same time, indexing the diesel share of rates on the indices published by the CNR avoids flat-rate increases that are hard to dispute.
Optimizing without degrading lead times: segment your service level
Not every customer and every order needs the same lead time. Shippers that succeed with transport optimization segment their service level:
| Segment | Target lead time | Preferred mode | Priority lever |
|---|---|---|---|
| Urgent orders or strategic customers | D+1 | Express parcel or dedicated vehicle | Limit volume, recharge when possible |
| Standard orders | D+2 to D+3 | Parcel or groupage | Consolidation by area and by day |
| Replenishment and large volumes | Planned | Part load or full load | Fill rate and planning |
The promised lead time is still met, but it is defined segment by segment, instead of applying the shortest, and most expensive, lead time to every order.
How to calculate the real cost of your transport
The amount on carrier invoices is not the real cost. You need to add everything that transport causes elsewhere:
Real cost = freight + surcharges + unplanned express + unrecovered claims + internal costs + billing errors
Related to the unit that matters for your business (order, kilo, pallet, parcel), this cost becomes comparable from one month to the next and from one carrier to another.
Illustrative example for a shipper sending 4,200 orders per month:
| Monthly item | Amount | Comment |
|---|---|---|
| Invoiced freight (base) | €41,000 | Carrier rate cards |
| Surcharges (diesel, tail lift, appointment) | €7,000 | Often underestimated |
| Unplanned express | €3,200 | Rarely isolated in the accounts |
| Unrecovered disputes and damage | €1,100 | |
| Internal time (0.5 FTE) | €1,650 | Shipment preparation, tracking, disputes |
| Undetected billing errors | €960 | Assumption of 2% of invoices, to be measured |
| Total real cost | €54,910 |
The visible cost is €11.43 per order (€48,000 of invoices / 4,200). The real cost is €13.07, i.e. 14% more. This gap is where the quickest gains lie: express shipping, disputes and billing errors require no renegotiation.
Where to start?
- Extract 3 to 6 months of transport invoices and shipments.
- Calculate the real cost per order and per carrier with the formula above.
- Isolate unplanned express and billing errors, the two quickest gains.
- Segment the service level, then consolidate and fill.
- Renegotiate last, with figures by flow.
A transport optimization software automates this calculation and compares your carriers on your own data. To go further, read our article on warehouse logistics optimization levers.
Frequently asked questions
What is transport optimization?
It is the set of actions that reduce the real cost of transport for the same level of service: consolidating shipments, choosing the carrier per flow, planning, filling, reducing empty miles and auditing invoices.
How can you cut transport costs without extending lead times?
By segmenting the service level: a short lead time for the orders that need it, consolidated and planned shipments for the others. Unplanned express and billing errors can be reduced without touching lead times.
How do you calculate the real cost of transport?
By adding surcharges, unplanned express, unrecovered claims, internal time and billing errors to the invoiced freight, then relating the total to the relevant unit (order, kilo, pallet).
What share of a road transport cost is diesel?
For a long-distance articulated truck, the CNR uses a 20.9% weighting for diesel in 2026, behind the driver (29.5%).