Container logistics hides a stubborn inefficiency. When an import container is unloaded, the empty normally goes back to a depot, while an export booking somewhere nearby needs an empty fetched from a depot. Two empty trips, trucks driving boxes of air in both directions. A street-turn (container triangulation) cuts that to one: the just-emptied import container is reused directly for the export, skipping the depot entirely. Nexport Logistics plans this into your road moves where it pays off, all visible in the Nexportal platform.
The catch: it's the carrier's box
You can't simply decide to reuse a container. The shipping line owns and controls the equipment, so two conditions must hold:
- The import container and the export booking must be with the same carrier; you can't put a Maersk import box under an MSC export.
- The carrier must approve the reuse, because they need their equipment tracked correctly.
That approval used to mean phone calls and emails. Now it's a platform.
Avantida: the reuse platform
Avantida is the digital platform where a haulier or forwarder requests to reuse an empty container, the carrier approves it, a fee is paid (card or account) and the move is registered with the shipping line, all in one flow. When a transporter can fit it cleanly into their planning, they request the street-turn on Avantida, pay the carrier's fee, and the box is cleared for reuse.
Avantida (an E2open company, the same family as Inttra, now under WiseTech Global) also handles related carrier-equipment requests: depot change, drop-off location change, and detention & demurrage extensions. The fee is set by the carrier and is typically charged only when the street-turn is actually carried out.
Why it's worth it
- One trip instead of two: no run to the depot to drop the empty, no run to fetch another.
- Lower cost: fewer kilometres, less trucking time, often less than the depot round-trip even after the carrier's fee.
- Less CO₂, since cutting empty mileage is the whole point.
- Less congestion and fewer gate moves at busy depots around Rotterdam.
It only works when the planning lines up — the same haulier (or two coordinated ones) with an import to empty and an export to fill, in the same area, same carrier, same window. That's the kind of match a forwarder with volume can engineer.
How Nexport Logistics handles it
We look for the street-turn whenever your import and an export can be combined on the same carrier, requesting and clearing it on Avantida, so you get the saving instead of paying for two empty trips. It sits alongside the terminal and depot planning and the Portbase release in Nexportal.
Moving import and export containers that could be reused? Email info@nexportlogistics.nl.
Source: Avantida platform. Related: Road · Rotterdam Terminals · Sea Freight · Inttra