Easing the Driver Shortage in Trucking With Smarter Fleet Planning

Key Takeaways

•       Europe had 444,000 unfilled driver positions by end of 2025 – carriers cannot recruit their way out of this
•       AI-driven route planning and driver matching helps trucking companies do more with the drivers they have
•       Automated load matching reduces empty miles by surfacing profitable return loads in real time
•       Better planning reduces the daily friction that contributes to driver turnover in trucking operations
•       Transmetrics FleetMetrics brings load scoring, fleet visibility, and planning analytics into one platform built for trucking operators

The driver shortage in European road freight is not a new problem – but it is getting harder to ignore. By the end of 2025, there were 444,000 unfilled driver positions across Europe, according to the IRU. One third of the current trucking workforce is over 55 and approaching retirement. Fewer than 5% of drivers are under 25. The pipeline is not keeping up, and most carriers know it.

For trucking companies, the response cannot just be recruitment, because there are simply not enough drivers to recruit. The more practical question is how to get more out of the capacity you already have – and that is where smarter fleet planning is making a real difference for trucking companies across Europe.

What Does Smarter Fleet Planning Mean for Trucking Companies?

Full truckload (FTL) operations run on direct, origin-to-destination routes with a single carrier occupying the entire truck. There are no consolidation stops, no shared space – which means every planning decision carries more weight. Assign the driver to the route they are not familiar with, miss a profitable return load, or let a truck sit idle after a delivery, and the impact on margins is immediate.

Smarter fleet planning means using AI-powered tools to make those decisions faster and more accurately – matching drivers to routes based on experience and availability, forecasting where demand will be before it arrives, and surfacing the best load opportunities in real time rather than waiting for a planner to find them manually.

How Can Trucking Companies Do More With Fewer Drivers?

When you are running a fleet with fewer drivers than you need, every inefficiency costs more than it should. A driver stuck in traffic on the wrong route, or assigned to a long-haul corridor they are not familiar with, is a problem a carrier cannot easily absorb – with capacity already tight, one misstep affects the whole operation.

AI-driven fleet planning reduces that exposure. By analysing route complexity, live traffic patterns, driver hours, maintenance schedules, and compliance requirements simultaneously, the system builds more efficient plans than a planner working across multiple tools could produce manually. 

Experienced drivers get matched to the routes that suit them. New or less experienced drivers are routed to runs that fit their skill level, reducing the risk of errors and the stress that comes with being thrown into the deep end too early.

Real-time GPS and telematics feed back into the central system, so fleet managers can reroute drivers during congestion without waiting for a phone call. Automated hours-of-service calculations remove another layer of manual work. And payment allocation based on actual miles driven and wait times gives drivers more transparency and incentive for better pay, which matters when retention is as much of a challenge as recruitment for trucking companies today. 

Recent industry research shows that 70% of transport and logistics leaders are already using AI tools, with fleet planning and route optimisation among the top areas showing measurable results.

How Does Better Planning Help Carriers Reduce Empty Kilometers?

Empty Kilometers – trucks running without freight after a delivery – are one of the biggest drains on carrier profitability. On average, 24% of total kilometers driven by trucks in the EU are empty. For a carrier already stretching a limited driver pool across its full route network, every empty run means a driver-hour spent generating no revenue.

Manually, the approach is to have planners monitor freight exchanges for return loads between deliveries. In practice, with multiple trucks on different lanes and requests coming in constantly, loads get missed. Trucks go back empty because nobody had the time or visibility to catch the right opportunity at the right moment.

AI-powered load profitability analysis, scoring, and pricing changes this process from manual to automated. By aggregating available freight from multiple sources and cross-referencing it against live fleet positions, the system surfaces the best return load options even before the delivery is complete – not just any available load, but the right one for the truck type, the lane, and the margin. Fewer empty runs mean each driver in the fleet is generating more revenue per km, which goes a long way when you are working with constrained capacity.

What Does Better Planning Actually Mean for Truck Drivers?

It is worth being direct about this. Drivers leave trucking for a lot of reasons – low pay, poor working conditions, time away from home, unpredictable schedules. Technology cannot fix all of that. But poor planning makes every one of those problems worse.

A driver who spends an hour at a standstill because nobody flagged the congestion, or who gets assigned a route they are not familiar with because the system did not account for their experience, or who has to chase the correct payment from the management when the actual mileage was calculated incorrectly – these drivers are more likely to leave the company, or the industry entirely. Streamlined fleet planning removes friction that experienced drivers find frustrating and that new drivers find overwhelming. It will not solve the shortage on its own, but it removes one of the reasons people walk away from such a demanding job.

How Does FleetMetrics Actually Help Trucking Fleets?

Transmetrics’ FleetMetrics is built for trucking companies that need to get more out of their existing fleet without adding to the workload of an already stretched planning team. 

It brings together the tools carriers need in one place – load aggregation from major European freight platforms, AI-powered load scoring that ranks every opportunity by profitability for your specific trucks and lanes, real-time fleet visibility, and analytics that show how your operation is performing and, most importantly, where you can find hidden profit opportunities.

For carriers dealing with driver shortages, the practical benefit is clear: planners spend less time searching, checking, and coordinating manually, and more time on the decisions that actually require them. Drivers get better routes, clearer instructions and support along the route, more transparent pay, and fewer of the daily frustrations that contribute to turnover. And the fleet as a whole runs more efficiently – higher revenue per km, fewer empty runs, better margins per truck.

Freight companies using FleetMetrics report saving around four hours per employee per week, with revenue improvements of up to €6,000 per truck per year. Within two months of deployment, FleetMetrics has achieved a fleet mileage increase by 11% in the first month and another 6% in the second month. Thanks to that, they were able to spread their fixed costs across a higher mileage and significantly improve the fleet unit economics.

To find out how FleetMetrics can help you plan smarter and retain more drivers, book a demo, and we will show you how it works with your specific fleet and lanes.