The year 2024 marked a historic milestone for international road transport under the Tir regime from China. The IRU, which oversees this system, attributes this growth to the emergence of dedicated hubs. Against this backdrop, the organisation notes that the sector is heading towards 2025 with promising opportunities and innovations. This development is reshaping trade corridors between China and Europe and enhancing the efficiency of cross-border transport across Asia. Thanks to increasingly close collaboration between public and private operators, the number of Tir operators and vehicles in China surged by over 400% throughout 2024. The volume of Tir road transport also saw a significant rise, with an 88% increase in operations to and from China. Additionally, this system has been employed for e-commerce, temperature-controlled goods and bulk cargo.
In 2024, transporters from eight different countries, including China, utilised the Tir system for international freight transport. This expansion was facilitated by 35 border crossings and inland Chinese cities, supporting more than fifty transboundary Tir routes. Five IRU-accredited logistics hubs became operational during the year in the cities of Kashgar, Urumqi, Zhengzhou, Shenyang and Chengdu. These hubs provide integrated services, including customs declarations, warehousing and goods handling, cutting processing times to under two hours. By the end of 2024, they had already attracted forty companies operating in transport, logistics and freight forwarding. Today, over twenty Tir routes depart from these hubs, connecting strategic regions such as Central Asia, Pakistan, Afghanistan and the Caucasus.
Looking ahead, the IRU aims to build on these achievements by expanding Tir routes, adopting new technological innovations and integrating the system with multimodal transport, bonded warehousing and transit operations. Furthermore, the establishment of additional logistics hubs in other cities remains a priority to further strengthen commercial connectivity between China and its global partners.
