Inside the Future of Freight: A Conversation with Dr. Miriam Okafor on Market Research in Transport and Logistics
Introduction
The transport and logistics sector is experiencing a convergence of disruptions — from autonomous vehicles and drone delivery to green shipping mandates and AI-powered supply chain orchestration — that is reshaping competitive landscapes at a pace that challenges even the most sophisticated research programs. Dr. Miriam Okafor is a Principal Research Director at a leading supply chain intelligence consultancy, where she has led market research programs for some of the world's largest freight carriers, third-party logistics providers (3PLs), and e-commerce fulfillment operations. We sat down with Dr. Okafor to discuss how market researchers should be approaching this rapidly evolving industry, what data sources and methodologies are driving the most valuable insights, and where she sees the sector heading over the next five years.
The State of the Market: Setting the Context
Q: Let's start with the big picture. How would you characterize the current state of the global transport and logistics market from a research perspective?
Dr. Okafor: The market is enormous and growing — the global logistics market was valued at approximately $9.5 trillion in 2023, and most credible forecasts put the CAGR at around 6.3% through 2030. But those headline numbers obscure what is really happening, which is an almost violent segmentation of the market into fundamentally different competitive arenas. The parcel and last-mile delivery segment is being completely reinvented by e-commerce volume growth and new entrants like Amazon Logistics. Ocean freight is navigating the aftermath of the COVID-era capacity crisis while simultaneously trying to decarbonize its fleet under IMO 2050 targets. Rail freight in Europe is experiencing genuine policy-driven investment for the first time in decades. Each of these sub-markets requires its own research lens, its own data sources, and its own analytical frameworks.
From a research perspective, the biggest challenge I hear from clients is the disconnect between the speed at which market conditions change and the cadence at which traditional research programs deliver insights. Quarterly reports or annual studies simply cannot keep pace with a sector where spot freight rates can move 40% in a month, as we saw dramatically in 2021 and 2022.
Q: What do those rate fluctuations mean specifically for how researchers approach market sizing and forecasting?
Dr. Okafor: It means you have to be extremely disciplined about distinguishing between structural market trends and cyclical volatility. The researchers who built market models in 2021 based on pandemic-era demand and rate levels made very expensive forecasting errors. The fundamentals of long-term logistics demand — driven by GDP growth, trade liberalization, and e-commerce penetration — are relatively stable. But the revenue and profitability picture for logistics operators is profoundly cyclical. I always tell clients: your market sizing model needs to operate at two speeds — a long-cycle structural view and a short-cycle operational view — and you need to be very clear with stakeholders about which one you are using at any given moment.
"The researchers who built market models in 2021 based on pandemic-era demand and rate levels made very expensive forecasting errors. You have to be extremely disciplined about distinguishing structural trends from cyclical volatility."
— Dr. Miriam Okafor, Principal Research Director
Research Methodology and Data Sources
Q: What data sources do you consider essential for anyone doing serious transport and logistics research?
Dr. Okafor: The foundational data architecture for logistics research should include several layers. At the macro level, you need trade flow data — UN Comtrade, Eurostat, and the WTO's World Trade Statistical Review are indispensable for understanding the underlying goods movements that generate logistics demand. For freight rate intelligence, the Baltic Exchange indices for dry bulk and tanker markets, Drewry's World Container Index for ocean container rates, and DAT Solutions for North American truckload spot rates are the reference standards that serious practitioners use.
At the company and operational level, S&P Global Market Intelligence and Alphaliner provide vessel capacity and carrier market share data for ocean freight. For air cargo, IATA's Air Cargo Market Analysis is the authoritative source. And increasingly, satellite-based vessel and truck tracking data from providers like Windward or project44 is becoming a primary research input — it provides near-real-time empirical evidence of capacity utilization and routing patterns that is genuinely novel intelligence.
Q: How do you approach primary research in a sector where respondents — freight brokers, fleet operators, logistics managers — are extraordinarily busy and often reluctant to share operational data?
Dr. Okafor: This is one of the sector's real research challenges. Logistics professionals are pragmatic, time-constrained people who have very little patience for research instruments that feel academic or disconnected from their operational reality. The most effective primary research I've conducted in this space has always been structured around specific operational decisions rather than general attitudinal questions.
For example, instead of asking a fleet operator how they feel about autonomous vehicles in general, you ask them: "In your last equipment procurement cycle, which three factors most influenced your decision on whether to pilot any autonomous or semi-autonomous systems?" That question produces specific, actionable intelligence. The same principle applies to survey design for 3PL procurement, freight rate negotiation practices, or warehouse automation investment decisions.
For qualitative work, I've had exceptional success with observational ethnographic research — spending time in distribution centers, on loading docks, and in freight brokerage operations watching how decisions are actually made, as opposed to how respondents report they are made in a survey context. The gap between reported and actual behavior in logistics operations is often significant and commercially important.
Emerging Trends Shaping Future Research Agendas
Q: What emerging trends in transport and logistics do you think are most underresearched right now?
Dr. Okafor: Three areas stand out to me as critically underresearched given their long-term market significance. First, the decarbonization transition in shipping and aviation. The IMO's carbon intensity targets and the EU's Emissions Trading System extension to maritime transport are going to fundamentally reshape carrier economics and shipper procurement strategies. We are at the very early stages of understanding how buyers will respond to green shipping premiums, and the research community needs to develop much more sophisticated willingness-to-pay and segmentation work in this space.
Second, the digitalization of freight procurement. Digital freight platforms like Flexport, Transfix, and Freightos are not just technology curiosities — they are materially changing how freight is bought and sold, and the implications for traditional intermediaries, pricing transparency, and carrier-shipper relationships are profound. The competitive intelligence research in this space lags significantly behind the actual market dynamics.
Third — and this one is perhaps the most important from a research methodology standpoint — supply chain resilience as a buyer value driver. Post-pandemic, organizations across every industry are re-evaluating their logistics network designs with resilience as an explicit optimization criterion alongside cost. Understanding how resilience is being defined, measured, and operationalized by logistics buyers is genuinely new research territory, and the methodological toolkit to study it is still being developed.
Q: What advice would you give to a market researcher who is new to the transport and logistics sector?
Dr. Okafor: Immerse yourself in the operational reality of the sector before you design a single survey question. Read the Journal of Business Logistics and the International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management. Follow the regulatory developments at the International Maritime Organization (IMO), the International Air Transport Association (IATA), and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA). Go visit a port, a rail yard, a fulfillment center. Talk to a truck driver. The sector's complexity is not primarily analytical — it is operational. The researchers who earn the most credibility in this space are the ones who demonstrate genuine understanding of how freight actually moves, not just how it appears in trade statistics.
"The researchers who earn the most credibility in this space are the ones who demonstrate genuine understanding of how freight actually moves, not just how it appears in trade statistics."
— Dr. Miriam Okafor
Looking Ahead
Dr. Okafor's perspective underscores a broader truth about market research in the transport and logistics sector: the quality of insight is directly proportional to the researcher's investment in understanding the operational, regulatory, and commercial realities of an industry where margins are thin, complexity is high, and the consequences of poor intelligence are measured in millions of dollars of misallocated capital. As the sector continues its technology-driven transformation, the demand for sophisticated, operationally grounded market research will only intensify — making it one of the most consequential and rewarding arenas for research professionals in the decade ahead.