A growing number of manufacturers and retailers have adopted the supply chain view to manage their business in recent years. For these companies the delivery system has become an integral part of the supplied product, to the extent that transportation and logistics receive the same evaluation as the product itself. In this context, transportation providers play a more important role than in the past insofar as they are entrusted with the task of co-ordinating and, secondly, accelerating physical and information flows along multiple levels of the supply chain and of making the whole logistical system more efficient and flexible in responding to swift market changes.