The shortage is not just a driver shortage
According to Timocom and evofenedex, the shortage of qualified drivers in 2026 is still not filled, but the problem reaches further. Planners and other operational roles are draining away too. More people are leaving than coming in, and that is not going to turn around quickly. What it means in practice: the people who are there have to do more. More planning, more switching, more information to process. And that information load is growing right now: more laws and regulations, more reporting requirements, more suppliers wanting to work together digitally.
The flex law adds an administrative layer
From 1 January 2026, new flex legislation comes into force that bears down hard on how the logistics sector handles temporary workers. Logistiek.nl describes the package as far-reaching: tighter rules around pay, security and the use of agency staff. For the many transport firms that work structurally with agency staff, this means the planning administration gets more complex. You have to keep more precise records of who works when, under which contract, and what their pay entitlements are. When that information is scattered across emails, loose files and a TMS that is not set up for this legislation, control gets difficult and mistakes get expensive.
Rising costs leave no room for sloppy sums
ING Transport en Logistiek points out that road transport costs rise sharply in 2026, partly because of the lorry levy that takes effect on 1 July 2026. The sector is still growing a little, but the margin per trip is getting thinner. Transport prices are under pressure from the capacity shortage at the same time as the cost per kilometre climbs. In this market, anyone who keeps pricing quotes on gut feel or an old rate sheet either sells trips below cost or prices themselves out of the market. Both outcomes are bad.
What this asks of your operations
The three pressures, staff shortage, flex-law admin and rising costs, share a common cause: information that is not available in structured form at the moment a planner or manager makes a decision. The answer is not a new ERP or TMS. That is too big, too expensive and too slow. Nor is it AI that makes decisions on its own. What does work: an AI layer that pulls what is already there from your existing systems, structures what comes in, and does the keying and the prep work. The planner decides, the system makes sure the information is correct and complete.
Where to start in practice
Start with the process that costs the most time right now and is the most error-prone. At most logistics firms that is order intake or quote estimating. Documents come in by email, PDF, sometimes still fax. Someone retypes that into the TMS or a spreadsheet. That retyping is where errors creep in, where time is lost, and where the link to the real cost price first starts to fail. A document AI such as Dottle reads those incoming documents, extracts the relevant data and sets it up ready for processing. The planner checks and signs off. Nothing more. That is no revolution, that is simply the right tool at the right moment.