Smartlane
Smartlane is a German cloud platform that plans and optimises delivery routes for groupage, regional distribution and last-mile freight. It plugs into an existing TMS through a REST API, or runs standalone from Excel uploads.
What is Smartlane?
Smartlane, marketed by its publisher as Smartlane Transport Intelligence, is a cloud application that builds and optimises road transport tours. It targets a deliberately narrow segment: groupage and general cargo, distribution and contract logistics, short-haul and regional traffic, and last-mile delivery. The company draws its optimisation work from deep-tech research at the Technical University of Munich.
The product is used in two ways. As an add-on, it connects to an existing transport management system over a REST API, takes the day's orders, and returns a finished plan to that system — the route the vendor recommends. As a standalone tool, it accepts an Excel or CSV file and lets dispatchers work directly in its own web interface, which the company labels the low-barrier option because it requires no integration project. Either way the engine applies the customer's real constraints: vehicle types, tail lifts, refrigerated compartments, loading classes, territory rules, order priorities, air-freight security requirements and specific driver assignments.
Beyond the optimisation itself, the interface gives dispatchers a map, a timeline and a KPI view covering vehicle utilisation, stop density and total kilometres, and it allows stops to be moved by hand with restrictions checked in real time. A feedback loop compares planned against actual stop and driving times so the underlying planning data grows more accurate with use. Three published use cases frame the offer: groupage with multi-depot and dynamic territory planning, last mile for parcel and e-commerce work, and framework tour planning for weekly or monthly schedules with scenario analysis.
Smartlane is explicit about its boundaries, and unusually so: it states that it is not a TMS and does not cover order management, freight invoicing, document management or full transport execution. Twelve customers are named with their specific application, including Emons across more than twenty sites, Fiege in tyre logistics and rudolph t&h in air-freight haulage. The company reports 110 million optimised kilometres, 15 million optimised shipments and 900,000 planned vehicles. Entry is through sales: a 60-minute consultation, then a free proof of concept on real data.
What it does
- Compute optimised vehicle tours in seconds from shipments, fleet, time windows and constraints
- Receive transport orders from a TMS or ERP over REST and push the finished plan back the same way
- Accept Excel or CSV uploads instead, so a first run needs no integration at all
- Model complex restrictions: vehicle type, tail lift, refrigeration, loading classes, territories, order priorities, air-freight security and named-driver assignment
- Let dispatchers redraw stops graphically in the web interface with constraints checked live
- Compare planned against actual stop and driving times to recalibrate the planning data
- Plan collections and deliveries in one optimisation, including pickups along an existing route
When to use Smartlane / When not to
A quick filter to help you decide if Smartlane is the right fit.
When to use Smartlane
- Dispatchers at groupage forwarders who build hundreds of stops into daily runs by hand
- Operations managers running multi-depot networks, such as the twenty-plus sites cited for Emons
- Last-mile and same-day operators in parcel, express and e-commerce delivery
- Contract and FMCG logistics teams, from tyre distribution to chilled food wholesale
- TMS vendors and integration architects who want to bolt optimisation onto their own product via REST
When not to use Smartlane
- Companies looking for a full TMS: the vendor states it does not handle order management, freight invoicing, document management or end-to-end transport execution
- Buyers who need to compare prices before talking to anyone, since no rate card is published anywhere
- Teams that require a signed contract template up front, as no terms and conditions are published
- Non-German-speaking operations staff, because the marketing site and the application interface are German only
- Carriers whose core problem is maritime, rail or air movement rather than road tour building
How to use Smartlane
A typical end-to-end flow, from setup to results.
- Request a 60-minute introductory call through the contact form, giving company name, fleet size and your situation
- Walk through your current dispatching setup on that call so the team can identify where the optimisation gains sit
- Watch a live demonstration built on realistic scenarios rather than a generic product tour
- Run a free proof of concept on your own real data, which the vendor uses to estimate utilisation, time savings and vehicle reduction
- Choose how data will reach the platform: a REST API link to your TMS or ERP, which the vendor recommends, or Excel and CSV uploads with no integration
- Configure the constraint sets that govern your planning: general rules, order rules, fleet rules and territory rules
- Let the engine build the tours, respecting every restriction you have declared
- Take the result back into your TMS through the API, or dispatch directly inside the Smartlane interface
- Adjust individual stops graphically where local knowledge beats the model, with constraints validated as you go
- Review the planned-versus-actual comparisons regularly and recalibrate stop and driving times from them
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Deliberate specialisation in a genuinely hard segment, backed by twelve named customers with their individual use cases
- Two adoption routes — API add-on or standalone — so the existing TMS does not have to be replaced
- Hosting declared in Germany and the EU, an explicit GDPR compliance claim and a named external data protection officer
- A real, publicly documented API on a ReadMe portal, with tutorial, reference and FAQ, verified live
- A free proof of concept on the customer's own data, with an economic assessment, before any commitment
- Consulting and support presented as included in the package rather than billed as extras, with a named contact from analysis to go-live
- An established integration ecosystem of eleven named TMS, telematics and mapping partners
Cons
- No terms and conditions published at all — nine paths probed, every one a genuine 404 — so there is no contractual basis to read before contact
- No public pricing of any kind: not a single amount appears anywhere on the site, and entry runs through sales by design
- The privacy statement covers only the marketing website, leaving the platform's handling of transport data undocumented in public
- No customer-facing data processing agreement is published or even announced, on a B2B product handling operational and recipient data
- No security certification whatsoever — neither ISO 27001, SOC 2 nor TISAX appears anywhere in the collected material
- The site and the product interface are German only; the API documentation is in English but no English version of the site exists
- The headline percentage gains are animated client-side and render as zero in the static page, so they cannot be verified as displayed
Pricing & Plans
No price is published. Smartlane does not operate a pricing page, and no monetary amount appears anywhere in the collected material, in the sitemap or in the site's own machine-readable index. The page labelled "start free of charge" is an appointment request form, not a rate card. The commercial route is a free 60-minute consultation, followed by a free proof of concept on the customer's real data, and only then a contract. The vendor presents consulting and support as included in an all-inclusive package without attaching a figure to it. No entry price, currency or billing unit can therefore be stated.
Data, GDPR & hosting
A consolidated view of how Smartlane handles your data.
GDPR overview
Smartlane states GDPR compliance explicitly, displaying "DSGVO-konform" alongside "Hosted in DE/EU" and end-to-end SSL/TLS in a trust block on both the homepage and the product page. A full German privacy statement exists and names an external data protection officer, jmh datenschutzberatung (Jörg Hermann, Munich), with a working contact address. It cites legal bases article by article and lists the data subject rights under Articles 15 to 21 and 77, and a Usercentrics consent banner is genuinely loaded on every page. Two limits matter: the statement is injected by a third-party script and covers the website only, never the transport data handled by the platform; and the company holds no security certification at all — no ISO 27001, SOC 2 or TISAX anywhere on the site.
Who owns the data?
Nothing published on the site answers this question. Smartlane makes no terms and conditions available: nine candidate paths were probed and every one returned a genuine 404, and none appears in the sitemap. The only legal document on the site is the German privacy statement, and it covers the marketing website alone — visitors, the contact form and job applications. It never addresses the transport data the platform processes. The named controller is Smartlane GmbH, represented by Monja Mühling and Florian Schimandl. No clause on ownership of customer data, no usage licence and no exit or data-return provision is published anywhere, so a prospective buyer cannot establish who owns what before entering a sales conversation.
Reuse rights
The site publishes nothing on what a customer may do with the data it puts into or takes out of the platform. There are no terms of service, no customer-facing data processing agreement and no trust or security page, so no reuse right is granted, restricted or even described. The vendor does state that the product improves its own planning data continuously — it compares planned against actual stop and driving times and draws on telematics feeds — but it never sets out the legal basis for that reuse, nor whether the resulting improvements stay within a single customer's account. This question has to be settled contractually, off the website.
Data retention & training
Hosting summary
Smartlane declares hosting in Germany and the EU, displaying "Hosted in DE/EU" and end-to-end SSL/TLS in its trust block. The privacy statement is more precise but narrower: it says the servers of the website are operated by AWS in Germany under an Article 28 processing agreement. Third parties actually loaded on the site are Usercentrics for consent, Google Tag Manager, Analytics and Fonts, Cloudflare, Brevo for the brochure form, and decareto, which supplies the privacy text itself. Transfers to the United States are acknowledged for Cloudflare and Google under the EU-US Data Privacy Framework with processing agreements in place. The important gap: nothing is published about where the platform itself runs. The application and its API are served from separate infrastructure, and the DE/EU claim is the only statement covering them.
Things to keep in mind
Risks and trade-offs to weigh before adopting Smartlane.
- No terms and conditions are published at all: nine candidate paths return genuine 404s, so you would commit without any contract text available to read in advance
- The privacy statement covers the marketing website only; how the platform handles your transport, address and recipient data is documented nowhere in public
- No customer-facing data processing agreement is published or announced, although the product plainly processes personal data belonging to your consignees
- "GDPR-compliant" and "Hosted in DE/EU" are the vendor's own statements, not attestations from an accredited body — there is no ISO 27001, SOC 2 or TISAX certificate behind them
- The site's own llms.txt announces three articles that do not exist and dates the company to 2017 when the register says 2015: treat the site's machine-readable claims as unreliable
- Results depend on the quality of the data you feed in, and the vendor presents continuous data improvement as part of the work, which implies a calibration period before the tours can be trusted
- Digitising dispatcher knowledge and cutting up to 90% of the planning workload can erode the human expertise you would need during an outage or on a case the model does not cover
Setup & Integrations
Technical difficulty
Two clearly separated levels. The integration-free route — uploading Excel or CSV files — needs no technical skill and the vendor labels it the low-barrier option. The recommended route, a bidirectional REST link between your TMS or ERP and Smartlane, is a development task, though public documentation and an OpenAPI specification on request support it, and eleven TMS and telematics partners are already connected. Expect a configuration phase to declare your general, order, fleet and territory restrictions. The vendor includes guidance from analysis through go-live, with team training.
Deployment
Integrations
Supported languages
Behind Smartlane
Social
Resources
All the official URLs gathered for verification and reference.
Frequently asked questions
What exactly does Smartlane do?
Does it replace our existing transport management system?
Do we need an integration project before we can start?
Is there a public API?
How much does Smartlane cost?
Can we try it before committing?
Where is the data hosted?
Which planning restrictions can it handle?
Which sectors is it used in?
Is there a mobile app?
Should you pick Smartlane?
Smartlane is a mature, tightly focused product. The company has been on the commercial register since 2015, and it runs in production at twelve named forwarders across groupage, contract, food and air-freight haulage. Its most unusual quality is honesty about scope: the vendor publishes a list of what the product does not do — order management, freight invoicing, document management, transport execution — and repeats that it is a tour-planning specialist rather than a TMS. For a dispatcher drowning in manual route building, that clarity is worth more than a longer feature list.
The technical risk of adoption is low. A free proof of concept on real data comes before any commitment, and the integration-free Excel route means a first result does not depend on an IT project. Eleven TMS, telematics and mapping partners are already connected, and the API is genuinely documented rather than merely claimed.
The commercial and legal opacity is the real reservation, and it is substantial. There are no published terms and conditions, no price of any kind, no customer-facing data processing agreement and no security certification. The privacy statement, though thorough, describes the marketing website rather than the platform, which leaves the handling of transport and recipient data undocumented in public. A buyer must therefore take every contractual and security question into the sales conversation, with nothing to read beforehand. Add a German-only site and interface, and the practical audience narrows to German-speaking road operations.
Within that audience, and for the groupage problem specifically, Smartlane looks like a credible and well-referenced option — provided the buyer treats the missing paperwork as a due-diligence task rather than an oversight.
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