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From 82 truck journeys to 5 barge shipments in Antwerp

Gosselin shifted recurring crate transport between its Deurne and Left Bank storage sites from road to inland navigation, partnering with Barging Solutions to move nearly 1,000 crates by barge and take 82 trucks off Antwerp's roads.

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82 trucks removed

Volume shifted equals 82 truckloads

~1,000 crates by water

Consolidated across five shipments

Biweekly barge service

Arrives at the Left Bank every other week

Lower emissions per trip

A barge emits far less CO2 than the trucks it replaces

Executive summary

Consolidating crate transport onto Antwerp's waterways

Gosselin has begun shifting part of its recurring moving-crate transport between Deurne and Antwerp's Left Bank from road to inland navigation. Because both storage sites sit on the same side of the water, the route was well suited to barge transport. Five barge shipments in, the shift has already replaced 82 truck journeys with a more scalable, water-based flow.

The challenge

A capacity bottleneck on a regular road route

Gosselin's moving division regularly transports crates between its Deurne and Left Bank storage facilities. Trucks covering this route can carry only twelve crates each, creating a persistent capacity constraint as volumes grew. Relying solely on road transport meant more trucks on an already busy stretch of the Antwerp network for a flow that, given the storage locations, had a viable water-based alternative available.

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A biweekly barge service with barging solutions

To address the capacity limit, Gosselin partnered with Barging Solutions to move crates between Deurne and the Left Bank by inland navigation instead of truck. A barge now arrives at the Left Bank every other week, where crates are unloaded and consolidated in one area before being loaded onto a single barge for the return leg to Deurne. Loading and unloading a barge involves more coordination than a truck, but consolidating multiple truckloads into one scheduled shipment lets Gosselin move significantly higher volumes per trip while keeping the process manageable within its existing moving and storage operations.

the impact

82 trucks off the road after five shipments

Five completed barge shipments have moved nearly 1,000 crates between Deurne and the Left Bank, a volume equivalent to 82 truckloads. Each shipment removes multiple truck journeys from Antwerp's road network in a single consolidated movement, easing pressure on a congested corridor. Because inland navigation vessels emit substantially less CO2 than the trucks they replace, the shift also lowers the environmental footprint of this recurring transport flow, without requiring any change to how crates are stored or handled at either site.

conclusion

Making inland navigation the standard for this route

Five barge shipments and 82 avoided truck journeys show that inland navigation can reliably replace road transport for recurring flows between sites on the same waterway. Gosselin aims to make barge transport the default on this route, with trucking used only as the exception.