Q: How would you define DSV Road Americas\u2019 strategic role within the company\u2019s global road freight network?
A: Road at DSV was built in Europe, and the European network remains the densest expression of what the division does. The Americas play a complementary role, defined by two key aspects:
First, Road in the Americas is what ties the rest of DSV’s services to the customer. In Europe, road freight is very often the product the customer buys. In the Americas, it is just as often the leg that carries a shipment into and out of the air, sea and warehouse network: pre-carriage from a plant in Queretaro to the airport, drayage off a vessel in Los Angeles, and the final leg into a distribution center in Ohio are all examples of this. We have about a thousand people across more than forty operations centers, moving over 800,000 shipments a year with roughly 1,700 trucks on the road each day that make all of this happen.<\/p>\n
Second, we run a unique hybrid model: an asset-light 3PL alongside a genuine asset-based motor carrier. On some lanes the customer is buying certainty, not a rate, and a pure broker cannot sell that because they do not own the capacity. We can, and we buy competitively everywhere else. For example, in cross-border and high-value high-risk freight, the equipment and the driver relationship are a differentiating factor as to why our customers choose us.<\/p>\n
Q: From an Americas perspective, how important has Mexico become for DSV\u2019s regional road freight strategy?
A: Mexico is not just one market for us; it is three business segments within a country, which is precisely why it has become our center of gravity.<\/p>\n
The first is domestic Mexican road freight: over 320 people across eight operations centres, more than 90,000 shipments a year and roughly 250 trucks on the road each day, covering Mexico City, Guadalajara, Monterrey, Queretaro, Puebla and Hidalgo. That is real domestic density. The second is cross-border, across the busiest commercial land border in the world, and that is exactly where the growth is. We hold branch and warehouse operations on both sides, spanning San Diego, El Paso, Laredo, McAllen and Brownsville. That footprint is deliberate, so we are not dependent on any single crossing. The third is Mexico as the gateway to Central America. Our CENAM operation consolidates through Laredo into Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama, reachable by road at a cost and transit ocean cannot match. This makes Mexico one of the most important markets in our Americas road strategy.<\/p>\n
Q: What are the main differences between managing road freight in North America, Latin America, and cross-border Mexico-US operations?
A: They are three different markets, and a common mistake in our industry is treating them as one with local variations.<\/p>\n
North America is a problem of scale and fragmentation. There are over a million trucking companies in the US, and roughly nine in 10 run six trucks or fewer. Accessing capacity is not the constraint; qualifying it is. The discipline here is rigorous vetting: a vetted base of around 40,000 carriers, with continuous monitoring of operating authority, safety rating, insurance validity, identity, and hard floors on coverage.<\/p>\n
Latin America is a problem of security and geography. In Brazil we work with a formal risk management program with route-level risk assessment, controlled stops, high-risk area protocols and, where the cargo demands it, vetted escorts and concealed tracking. That is standard practice, not an exception. Geography adds the second constraint: from Santiago you reach Buenos Aires in two days but Sao Paulo in seven, with everything funnelling through a few Andean crossings, \u00a0which requires weekly scheduled departures rather than daily density.<\/p>\n
Cross-border Mexico-US operations involve two regulatory systems meeting at a physical point: two carrier legs and a transfer, two mutually exclusive customs processes, and two hours-of-service rules, eleven driving hours inside a fourteen-hour window in the US, a fourteen-hour limit with a mandatory break after five continuous hours in Mexico. The critical part is almost never the truck. It is the documentation, the appointment and the handoff.<\/p>\n
Q: How is DSV aligning its road freight operations across Mexico, the United States, Canada, and Latin America to offer customers a more integrated regional network?
A: There are four key aspects to an integrated regional network:<\/p>\n
One is product architecture. FTL, LTL, LTL Express, intermodal, drayage, specialized transport, and time-critical services should mean the same thing in every country. That common language is what lets a regional customer buy one uniform solution rather than different services segregated by country.<\/p>\n
Another is contracted carrier networks across all three countries in North America. This is where the DSV-Schenker integration is most concrete. We hold contracts with 27 LTL providers in the United States; 45 in Canada, 15 national and 30 cross-border; and 17 in Mexico, split between national carriers and regional cross-border specialists. Very few providers carry that depth on all three sides simultaneously, and it is what allows us to quote a Toronto\u2013Monterrey movement as one service rather than three subcontracts.<\/p>\n
The third aspect is border capability north and south. Cross-border is not a Mexico-only competency for us. We operate across the northern crossings, Blaine, Sweetgrass, Pembina, Champlain, Buffalo, and Detroit, alongside the southern ones, with customs clearance in all three countries, bonded in-transit moves, strategic transloading, and our own assets supplementing procured capacity.<\/p>\n
The last one is creating a single visibility layer. myDSV is the customer-facing user interface and source of truth regardless of which country executes the move, with EDI and API connectivity, document management, claims handling, and DSV Protect behind it.<\/p>\n
Q: How are DSV\u2019s road freight services, digital products, and technology platforms helping customers improve visibility, compliance, and efficiency in Mexico-US cross-border operations, especially amid rising trade complexity and customs requirements?
A: Customers used tracking so they could plan their receiving dock. Now they need the same data to satisfy a regulator. Mexico’s customs reform requires importers to transmit electronic records tracing goods from the crossing through to final destination. That is a visibility requirement written into customs law, and a provider who cannot produce a clean, document-linked chain of custody now creates compliance exposure for their customer, not just frustration. Our platform was built for the operational problem and answers the regulatory one. We run a proprietary TMS across FTL, LTL and partial, integrated by API and EDI with our rating, tracking and carrier compliance systems. Customers get real-time tracking, configurable milestones, and proof of delivery and documents captured at the source, alongside claims and document management in the same place.<\/p>\n
On the customs side we bring classification on both sides of the border, USMCA management, duty drawback, and Annex 24 interfaces, under C-TPAT certification. For intermodal moves, we also offer customs clearance while the freight is in transit rather than at the ramp.<\/p>\n
The efficiency gain follows from the automation rather than being sold separately: fewer check calls, fewer document chases, and better exception management all leading to fewer surprises at the border.<\/p>\n
Q: Which industries are driving the strongest demand for cross-border road solutions between Mexico and the United States?
A: Our largest verticals are industrial at around 31%, consumer at 25% and technology at 16%, with automotive at 10% and healthcare at 8%. The cross-border corridor skews toward the manufacturing end of that mix.<\/p>\n
Automotive is the most demanding by discipline. It is a synchronisation requirement more than a transport one: just-in-time delivery aligned to production, sequenced loads organised by line and model, milk runs across supplier clusters, and inbound flows where a missed window stops a plant. Tolerance for variability is close to zero.<\/p>\n
Technology and electronics is the fastest growing and most strategic for us. Computer equipment, networking, and electrical components, as well as products related to data centers buildouts are consistently among the largest commodity groups crossing at Laredo. The freight is high value, theft-attractive and often delicate, pushing it toward white-glove handling, dedicated equipment and full traceability. AI data center buildout is a particular case: we handle rack and loose gear freight for hyperscalers with dedicated branded vehicles, uncrating, floor protection, roll-to-floor placement, and decommissioning, under formal protocols for delivery into live data center environments.<\/p>\n
Q: How are tariffs, geopolitical tensions, and shifting trade policies reshaping cross-border trade trends across the Americas, particularly in terms of routing decisions, customer demand, and supply chain resilience?
A: The biggest behavioural change is that trade preference has moved from a back-office question to a network design question. At the joint review on July 1, the United States declined to renew the USMCA in its current form while Mexico and Canada supported the extension. The agreement remains in force, and current preferential tariffs, rules of origin, and investment protections are unaffected, but the 16-year extension was deferred, and the parties are working through bilateral rounds. Sectoral tariffs on autos, steel, and aluminium remain live, alongside genuine legal volatility around the broader tariff authorities.<\/p>\n
Routing decisions are now landed-cost decisions. Demand has shifted toward risk mitigation: a second gateway, a bonded option, a warehouse position at the border, an intermodal alternative, wanted not for daily use but so the option exists. We support that with bonded in-transit capability and FTZ warehousing, deferred-duty structures such as the extra-port arrangement at our San Antonio branch in Chile along with the Iquique free trade zone, and intermodal into and out of Mexico.<\/p>\n
Q: What are the biggest operational bottlenecks that still limit the efficiency of Mexico-US road freight?
A: One is concentration. Laredo handles close to half of all United States-Mexico cross-border freight, with more than 20,000 crossings a day. That works until it does not: a systems issue, staffing gap, or bad weather stacks at one port rather than spreading across five, and a two-hour crossing becomes a full day. Our answer is structural: we offer services across every major border crossing: San Diego, El Paso, Laredo, McAllen, and Brownsville to ensure we have contingency solutions in place at all times.<\/p>\n
Another is the handoff, not the haul. Every cross-border move involves a Mexican leg, a transfer, and a US leg, each with its own dispatch, equipment, and appointment. Most lost time accumulates in those seams, which is why we run fifty dedicated cross-border trailers and confirm trailer arrival in both directions immediately.<\/p>\n
Lastly, there is documentation quality. Under Mexico’s new customs rules, a paperwork error is no longer just a delay, it can mean a serious fine worth multiple times the shipment value. These errors almost always start with the shipper, long before the freight reaches the border.<\/p>\n
Q: How would you describe the current state of customs operations at the Mexico-US border, and how has Mexico\u2019s new Customs Law impacted DSV\u2019s cross-border operations so far in terms of efficiency, compliance, challenges, and new opportunities?
A: The reform restructures three things at once. It imposes mandatory digital traceability, requiring importers to maintain and transmit records letting the authority follow goods from crossing to final destination. It extends liability to customs brokers, who now share exposure with importers on undervaluation, misclassification and false declaration. And it raises consequences sharply, with penalties for certain non-tariff failures running to multiples of commercial value, alongside seizure and cancellation of import programs. IMMEX controls are tightened and guarantee account cancellation periods extended.<\/p>\n
On efficiency, the near-term effect is more preparation before freight moves. On compliance, we have leaned on what we already had: OEA in Mexico, C-TPAT certification, in-house customs services, classification and valuation capability, and Annex 24 interfaces.<\/p>\n
Customers are consolidating toward partners such as DSV who invested in compliance infrastructure and customs risk mitigation early on and who can carry that credibly forward.<\/p>\n
Q: What trends is DSV seeing in cross-border routes across the Americas, particularly in Mexico-US trade lanes, and how are nearshoring, tariffs, capacity shifts, and customer demand changing which corridors are becoming more strategic?
A: Three key aspects stand out here:<\/p>\n
First, de-concentration away from a single crossing. Laredo’s dominance is not going away; its carrier density, brokerage depth and infrastructure are hard to replicate. But sophisticated shippers have stopped running single-gateway strategies. We see structured use of El Paso and Santa Teresa for Chihuahua and Bajio flows, Eagle Pass as a Laredo relief valve, Nogales for the Sonora corridor, Otay Mesa and San Diego for electronics and medical devices out of Tijuana, and McAllen, Los Indios and Brownsville for the northeast. Our southern border footprint was built for exactly this.<\/p>\n
The interior of Mexico is where growth originates. Monterrey remains the industrial anchor, but the Bajio is where new capacity is landing, and warehouse supply is not keeping pace. That systematically changes the freight flow: longer domestic legs feeding the border, more consolidation opportunities, more value in owning the Mexico leg rather than subcontracting it at the bridge.<\/p>\n
Nearshoring has changed the direction of flow, not just the volume, with capital goods, components and machinery moving south to build Mexican capacity, finished goods moving north. That is a two-way corridor with real backhaul economics, a different planning problem from the one-way surge people describe.<\/p>\n
Q: What role do you expect Mexico to play in DSV\u2019s Americas growth strategy by 2030?
A: By 2030 I expect Mexico to be the operational center of Road Americas rather than one market within it, built on four commitments we are already executing.<\/p>\n
First, we want to own more of the network. We buy capacity competitively on most lanes and own it where ownership is the service: at the border, on high-value high-risk freight, and on specialized equipment. The more owned infrastructure, the more dedicated equipment and fewer handoffs to third parties. OptiMex supports this strategy in providing a single, controlled US-MX cross-border logistics solution by combining the benefits of DSV\u2019s expansive air, sea, road, and warehouse services with customs brokerage and trade compliance expertise.<\/p>\n
Second, we are building out LTL Express. Scheduled, direct LTL is where we can offer customers what the traditional LTL market structurally cannot: a consistent pickup and delivery schedule, far fewer accessorial charges, direct zone-to-zone lanes, fewer warehouse touches and a transparent cost they can budget year over year. Fewer touches mean less probability of damages\/RMAs, which results in a more fluid end-to-end freight flow. Mexico is central to how that network scales.<\/p>\n
Third, we are scaling the technology and electronics vertical. Given where semiconductor, electronics, and data center investment is landing in Mexico, that is where I expect disproportionate growth.<\/p>\n
Fourth, we want to deepen Central America. Mexico is the land bridge. Executing well in Mexico creates an opportunity across Central America which becomes an extension of the same network rather than a separate venture.<\/p>\n
All of this sits under our group strategy, Leverage to Lead, which means turning scale into advantage through network optimization, our digital platform, and disciplined execution. Whatever happens on trade policy, the structural logic has not changed: companies are moving production closer to the end market, and Mexico is the primary beneficiary of that shift.<\/p>\n
Q: What objectives did DSV Road Americas set for 2026, and now that the year is approaching its midpoint, how would you assess progress so far? What are your main expectations and priorities for the second half of the year?
A: We set three objectives for 2026, and I am pleased with where we stand on all three. The first was completing the network integration following the Schenker acquisition. In the Americas, the heavy lift is now largely behind us. That was a substantial undertaking: combining networks, systems, and teams across multiple countries in a single year, and our people executed it while providing exceptional service to our customers in parallel. What we have on the other side is a materially larger footprint: around 1,000 people, more than 40 operations centers, over 800,000 shipments a year and roughly 1,700 trucks moving daily across the region, with procured LTL depth in all three North American markets that neither organization had on its own.<\/p>\n
The second was building density in LTL and consolidation, and that product is landing well. The third was cross-border compliance readiness ahead of the Mexican customs reform. That was the right call, and it is now a genuine competitive advantage.<\/p>\n
For the second half of the year, my priorities will be focused on sustainable growth. We will convert the integrated network into commercial wins, keep tightening the Mexico leg and the border handoff where our differentiation is strongest, and continue scaling LTL Express. With the integration largely behind us and nearshoring volumes still building, I think Road Americas is in the strongest position it has been in DSV\u2019s past 50-year history. The most interesting part of this story is still ahead of us.<\/p>\n
DSV is a Denmark-based transport and logistics provider that employs approximately 160,000 people in more than 90 countries. DSV operates through three divisions: Air & Sea, Road, and Contract Logistics, utilizing an asset-light business model to manage supply chain services for industries including automotive, technology, and healthcare.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Q: How would you define DSV Road Americas\u2019 strategic role within the company\u2019s global road freight network?A: Road…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":149006,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[273],"tags":[248,18652,70649,227,15997,65188,70645,3586,59286,15492,11067,70648,282,4814,70646,70647,70653,60807,31781,70654,3662,1978,1985,2073,1555,65197,70657,1987,70650,70656,70652,70655,70644,3018,673,42263,1536,239,36812,8064,70651,2567,76,44460,3028],"class_list":["post-149005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dsv","tag-ai","tag-automotive","tag-c-tpat","tag-canada","tag-central-america","tag-cross-border-logistics","tag-cross-border-trade","tag-customs","tag-customs-reform","tag-data-centers","tag-digital-transformation","tag-drayage","tag-dsv","tag-electronics","tag-freight-transportation","tag-ftl","tag-guadalajara","tag-industrial-sector","tag-intermodal-transport","tag-laredo","tag-latin-america","tag-logistics","tag-ltl","tag-manufacturing","tag-mexico","tag-monterrey","tag-mydsv","tag-nearshoring","tag-network-optimization","tag-optimex","tag-queretaro","tag-rene-harboe","tag-road-freight","tag-schenker","tag-supply-chain","tag-supply-chain-visibility","tag-tariffs","tag-technology","tag-trade-compliance","tag-trade-policy","tag-trade-resilience","tag-transportation","tag-united-states","tag-usmca","tag-warehousing"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149005","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=149005"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149005\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/149006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=149005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=149005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=149005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}