Cross-border transport across East Africa

Corridors and destinations we coordinate

East African road freight concentrates on a small number of high-volume corridors. The Northern Corridor runs inland from Mombasa through Nairobi to Malaba or Busia and on to Kampala, with onward legs to Kigali, Bujumbura, Goma and Juba. The Central Corridor runs from Dar es Salaam through Tanzania to Rwanda, Burundi and eastern DRC. Between them they carry the bulk of the region's containerised and bulk trade.

FleetGrid coordinates movements on these corridors in both directions: import legs from the ports inland, export legs back to the ports, and the intra-regional flows between manufacturing hubs and consumer markets that do not touch a port at all. Backhaul opportunities are considered when planning, because an empty return leg is cost your consignment ultimately pays for.

We work through vetted transport partners licensed for the routes and destinations in question. Cross-border work has specific requirements — regional transit licensing, bonded capability where applicable, drivers with the correct travel documentation — and allocation is restricted to partners who genuinely hold them.

• Mombasa and Nairobi to Kampala, Kigali, Bujumbura, Juba and Goma
• Dar es Salaam and the Central Corridor into Rwanda, Burundi and eastern DRC
• Intra-regional movements between Kenyan, Ugandan and Tanzanian commercial centres
• Return and export legs back to the ports of Mombasa and Dar es Salaam

Border management is a documentation discipline

Most border delay is not caused by the border. It is caused by paperwork that was incomplete, inconsistent or submitted late. A single mismatch between the invoice, the packing list and the customs declaration can hold a truck for days at Malaba, Busia or Namanga while everything else on the corridor moves past it.

Our approach is to get documentation right before the vehicle leaves the loading point. We work with you and your appointed clearing agent to confirm that commercial documents, transit paperwork and any permits or certificates required for the commodity are consistent and in place, and we confirm the driver is carrying what the post will ask for.

FleetGrid coordinates transport and works alongside your customs clearing agent. Where you do not have one, we can introduce licensed agents who operate at the relevant posts. Duties, taxes and clearance decisions remain matters between you, your agent and the revenue authority.

• Pre-departure document checks against the commodity and destination requirements
• Coordination with your appointed clearing agent at each post
• Driver document verification including passports and regional travel requirements
• Border arrival, clearance and departure milestones reported as they happen

Visibility across multiple jurisdictions

A cross-border movement passes through several operating environments in one journey, and the usual failure is that visibility stops at the first frontier. We keep one tracking thread across the whole movement so you see the consignment on the inland leg, at the border, and on the onward leg to final delivery.

Milestone reporting is structured around the points that actually matter on a regional movement: loading, departure, border arrival, clearance, border departure, destination arrival and offloading. Notifications can be shared with your team and with the consignee so the receiving side can plan labour and space.

When a consignment stalls, you hear it from us with a reason and an expected recovery, not from a customer asking where their goods are.

Planning for transit time you can actually commit to

Corridor transit times vary considerably with border conditions, weighbridge queues, road works and the time of year. Quoting a single optimistic figure helps nobody. We plan around realistic ranges for the specific corridor, commodity and season, and we tell you where the variance sits so your own commitments to customers are safe.

For repeat regional lanes this becomes a real planning asset. Tracking actual performance over many movements shows which posts and which times of week cost you the most hours, and that evidence lets us adjust dispatch timing, documentation lead time or partner allocation to recover them.