Truck Alliance, a Chinese company providing a Uber-type service for trucks, partnered with a leading railway logistics firm on Thursday to enable freight train trucking operations.
Truck Alliance's partner, Shenhua Railway Freight Corporation, is a subsidiary of top coal producer Shenhua Group. It owns 2,155 kilometers of railway, 40 ships, and three ports handling 270 million tonnes of freight.
"Trains can carry cargo-loaded trucks or containers," said Kang Fengwei, general manager of the Shenhua logistics company. "The combination of trucking and railway freight businesses can cut costs and raise efficiency of logistics."
The first route to pilot freight train trucking will begin in a logistics park in Erdos, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, and run 1,000 kilometers eastward to end at the port of Huanghua in Hebei Province. Operations will begin this year.
Truck Alliance began developing a truck-hailing app in 2014. It secured substantial financing led by Tencent Holdings Ltd. in the following year. The company now works with 3.7 million trucks and 630,000 freight senders. About 5 million orders are being posted on the platform every day.
Trucking is a popular means of cargo transport in China. However, more than 85 percent of trucks are owned by individuals. Prior to the app, truckers spent a lot more time and fuel looking for orders.
