What Determines the Cost of Groupage Freight to Türkiye

Why nobody credible publishes a rate card for this

Search for the cost of road freight to Türkiye and you will find price ranges quoted per kilogram, unsourced, presented as though they settled the question. They do not, and the reason is structural rather than evasive.

Part-load freight is sold on space, and space is only loosely related to weight. Two pallets side by side on the same trailer can differ by a factor of twenty in weight and cost nearly the same to move, because what they consume — floor area on a vehicle with a fixed floor — is identical.

Any figure quoted per kilogram without knowing the dimensions is either a guess or has conditions attached that surface later.

The unit that actually governs the price

The working unit in European road groupage is the loading metre: one metre of trailer floor across its full width.

A standard curtain-side semi-trailer offers roughly 13.6 loading metres. A Euro pallet measures 1.2 by 0.8 metres, and whichever way you turn it, it occupies about 0.4 of a loading metre — which is why a full trailer takes somewhere around 33 to 34 of them.

The arithmetic that follows is straightforward. Two loading metres is about 15 % of the vehicle, and that share is what you are buying. Weight enters as a second constraint: a trailer reaches its payload limit before it runs out of floor if the cargo is dense enough.

Because both constraints exist, forwarders convert volume into a notional weight and charge whichever is higher — actual or volumetric. The conversion factor is not standardised. It is set in the quotation and differs between providers, which means two quotations using different factors cannot be compared by looking at the headline number. Ask what factor applies.

What moves the figure, in order

1. The space you occupy. Loading metres first, weight as the second constraint. This sets the base and everything else adjusts it.

2. Where the goods are collected and delivered. The international leg is often the predictable part; the domestic legs at each end are where cost varies. A consignment within a terminal’s catchment is collected on a routine run. One several hours away needs a dedicated movement. Our five terminals in Italy exist for precisely this reason, and it is visible in the transit data as well as the cost.

3. Customs effort. Not every consignment is equally expensive to clear. The commodity code determines which documents and permits apply, and goods that need product-specific permits carry more work than goods that do not. Where the departure country sits outside the customs union — the UK and Switzerland among our lanes — the origin question adds a further step. The A.TR guide sets out which regime applies where.

4. The value of the goods. Relevant for customs, and relevant for cover. It is worth knowing that the carrier’s liability under the CMR convention is capped at 8.33 special drawing rights per kilogram of gross weight — calculated from weight, not from value. For light, high-value consignments that limit can fall well short of the invoice. We explain the arithmetic here.

5. Timing and capacity. Groupage depends on vehicles filling. On a lane with steady volume a consignment waits less; on a thin lane it waits longer. That is why Poland runs faster than Germany despite lying further east — and it is the same mechanism that makes capacity tighter at some points in the year than others.

What we will not do

We do not publish rates on this site. Given the variables above, a headline figure would be useful only if it came with the conditions that make it true — and a price with a page of conditions is not a price.

What we will do is answer quickly. Send the details below and you get a real number for your actual consignment rather than a range you then have to negotiate against.

The six things a quotation needs

1. Collection address — determines the terminal and the domestic leg
2. Delivery address — determines the corridor and the final leg
3. What the goods are — drives the commodity code, and with it the document set
4. Weight — the second constraint after space
5. Dimensions per handling unit — without these, no honest part-load quote is possible
6. Value — needed for customs, and to judge whether cover makes sense

If your goods carry any special requirement — temperature, permits, restrictions — say so at the start. Those requirements bring documents with them, and documents are what stretch a transit.

One thing worth checking before you compare quotes

Ask each provider two questions: what conversion factor they apply between volume and weight, and what transit time they are quoting for that lane.

On the second, you can already check ours. Every corridor we run has its measured average published, together with the fastest and slowest case we recorded. A quotation that promises three days on a lane where the measured mean is over six is not a better price. It is a different promise.