Battery logistics and dangerous goods advisers in Europe
Lithium batteries travel as dangerous goods, which is why the 7 providers here sell documents and advice alongside transport. Freight is the straightforward half. What varies is how much of the compliance work a provider takes on: classification, choosing the packing instruction, the transport document and the dangerous goods safety adviser role itself.
Every company in this category
7 records-
Dachser
- Employees
- 10000+
- Ownership
- Privately held
- Role under the EU battery rules
- Service provider
-
DB Schenker
- Employees
- 10000+
- Ownership
- Subsidiary
- Parent company
- DSV A/S
-
DGM Luxembourg
- Ownership
- Privately held
- Services
- DG compliance, battery transport documentation, DGSA services, training
- Standards served
- IATA DGR, ADR, IMDG
-
DSV
- Employees
- 10000+
- Ownership
- Publicly listed
- Role under the EU battery rules
- Service provider
-
Gebrüder Weiss
- Employees
- 5000-10000
- Ownership
- Privately held
- Standards named on their site
- REACH
-
Kuehne+Nagel
- Employees
- 10000+
- Ownership
- Publicly listed
- Pricing model
- Quote on request
-
Rhenus Logistics
- Employees
- 10000+
- Ownership
- Privately held
- Standards named on their site
- REACH
Browse by country
What to check before you shortlist
UN 38.3 sits behind all of it. Lithium cells and batteries need it before they ship by air, sea, road or rail. Air freight adds a further limit, since the state of charge of a lithium-ion battery must not exceed 30%. A forwarder that does not ask for the test summary at quotation is one that will find the problem at the airport.
DGSA stands for dangerous goods safety adviser. The role is named and personal rather than a document filed once a year. Providers here sell it as an outsourced service to shippers with nobody in-house, which is a separate purchase from freight and is worth contracting separately. Training sits next to it on several of these lists, since the people packing a consignment need it as much as the person signing the declaration.
Scope is the thing to pin down. Air, sea and road run on separate rulebooks. A forwarder strong in one is not automatically strong in the next. Waste and damaged batteries are a third case again, with their own approvals, their own packaging and a much shorter list of carriers prepared to take the load.
This is one of the smaller categories in the directory. It holds several large multi-service forwarders next to at least one firm that does dangerous goods management and nothing else, so the entries are not directly comparable. The list grows as new records clear checking. Every entry shows where its details were found and when.
Questions buyers ask before they shortlist
Can lithium batteries go by air?
Yes, inside limits. UN 38.3 has to be passed first and the air state of charge cap applies to lithium-ion cells. Damaged or defective batteries are treated as a separate case altogether. Confirm acceptance with the forwarder before a schedule is built around a route, because carrier policy sits on top of the rules and differs between airlines.
Do we need our own dangerous goods safety adviser?
That depends on what you ship and in what quantity, which is itself the first question to put to an adviser. Providers in this category sell the role as a service, so a shipper with nobody in-house can cover it without hiring. The practical test is availability: whether the named person is reachable on the day a consignment is stopped at a border.
What does a forwarder need from us to quote?
The UN number and proper shipping name, the packing instruction the goods are packed to, the UN 38.3 test summary, the net and gross weight per package plus the safety data sheet. Send that set at the quote stage rather than at collection. Most of the delays this traffic is known for come from a document produced after the truck arrived.
Is the forwarder responsible if the paperwork is wrong?
Read the contract rather than assuming. A forwarder acting on your instructions works from the information you supplied, so an error in a classification you provided normally stays your problem. Providers that also sell advisory work are the ones taking a position on the classification itself, which is a different service carrying different liability. Ask which of the two you are actually buying.