Second-party logistics
A Second-party logistics provider (abbreviated 2PL) is an asset-based carrier, which actually owns the means of transportation.
Type of 2PL
Second-party logistics providers are:
- shipping lines, which own, lease, or charter their ships,
- airlines, which own, lease, or charter their planes,
- truck companies, which own, or lease their trucks,
- barge companies, which own, lease, or charter their barge,
- rail companies, which own their trains,
- warehouse owners.
Transportation industry
In the transportation industry, the second-party logistics providers are segmented between different categories of transportation:
- seafreight, which regroups shipping lines and barge companies,
- airfreight, which regroups the airlines, as well as the cargo helicopter companies,
- trucking, which regroups the truck companies and the van companies,
- railways, which regroups the rail companies,
- warehousing and logistics.
Terminology
In the "PL" terminology, it is important to differenciate the 2PL from the:
- 1PL, which are the shipper or the consignee,
- 3PL, which are one stop shops for the 1PL, such as freight forwarders or courier companies,
- 4PL, which are consulting firms such as Deloitte, SCMO (company), BMT Limited, or Accenture.
Overlapping
2PL can also be 3PL at the same time in the following cases:
- when a shipping line owns a freight forwarder,
- when an airline owns a general sales agent (GSA),
- when a freight forwarder owns trucks, or a warehouse,
- when a courier company owns planes, trucks, or a warehouse.
See also
- Airline
- Cargo airline
- List of airlines
- Shipping line
- List of ship companies
- Road transport
- Ship transport
- Containerization
- Rail transport
- Freight
- Shipping
- Logistics
- Transportation
- Supply chain management
- Intermodal freight transport
- 1PL, First-party logistics provider
- 3PL, Third-party logistics provider
- 4PL, Fourth-party logistics provider