The AI hauliers actually asked for

About the survey

OneAdvanced ran the survey with the RHA, across RHA members and OneAdvanced's own customers. The full report is the UK Haulage: Technology & Resilience Benchmark Report 2026, and the RHA published the headline findings on 23 July 2026.

The report says the survey was weighted towards SME fleets, with 74% of respondents running fleets of one to 50 vehicles. Operations was the most common department (57%), and 35% of respondents were directors or C-suite. The report doesn't give the total number of responses. OneAdvanced sells transport software, so we stick to the findings here.

The headline numbers

• AI that removes admin, 59%: asked which uses of AI would add real value, respondents chose "smart document processing (59%) and predictive vehicle maintenance (54%)" as the biggest opportunities.
• Manual data entry, 43%: "manual data entry (43%) and reconciling invoices/ePODs (40%)" were the biggest pain points, and the impact grows with fleet size.
• Compliance and cashflow, 76% and 74%: the two dominant concerns were "DVSA compliance (76%) and financial volatility (74%)", ahead of cyber security and ESG.
• Systems that don't join up, 91%: "just 9% of respondents are running a fully integrated software suite with automated data flows". That leaves 91% of hauliers without fully linked systems. 46% have some linked systems but still need manual exports or uploads, and 26% rely on standalone tools or spreadsheets.
• Gut feel in micro fleets, 44%: "44% of micro fleets rely solely on gut feel, intuition, and experience for major decisions". The report says this almost vanishes for fleets above 50 vehicles.

What hauliers mean when they say AI

Not robots, and not a new platform. The report says respondents "aren't looking for AI to completely transform their business, but want it to help with mundane daily tasks." The top two AI uses mirror the top pain points: paperwork that eats hours, and breakdowns that eat margin.

The RHA's Managing Director said the same in the launch release: "Technology should remove friction from day-to-day operations, and that's where it has the greatest value."

The report also notes many operators "may not yet know where or how to start". For a small fleet the useful question is simple: which office job should software be doing instead of a person?

Where the paperwork piles up in a tipper or haulage office

For most tipper, aggregate and haulage operators it starts with tickets. Every load has a delivery or weighbridge ticket, and every week an invoice or self-bill arrives with dozens of lines. Someone types tickets in, then ticks lines off against a pile of paper. That is the survey's top two pain points, manual data entry and invoice reconciliation, in one weekly job.

Smart document processing, in plain English, means the software reads the photo or PDF so nobody types it, then does the checking, so the office only looks at loads that don't line up.

What practical AI looks like for a small or medium fleet

This is how it works in Raahi Flow, the app we build for UK tipper and haulage operators:

• The driver snaps the ticket. Each delivery or weighbridge ticket is photographed on the phone and saved against that load and truck. If the driver doesn't type the ticket number, the app's AI reads it from the photo. On a delivery ticket it also picks up the date, time on site, any waiting note, return load and tonnes.
• The office adds the invoice. Upload the invoice or self-bill as a photo or a PDF, and Raahi Flow's AI reads every line: ticket number, date, quantity, price and amount.
• Every ticket is matched by number. One screen per truck shows which loads match and which need a look, including tickets that are delivered but not on an invoice yet. See how ticket to invoice matching works.

Raahi Flow matched £8,745 of tickets to invoices on one truck.

Keeping vehicles safe and on the road sits in the same app. Drivers do the full 30-point DVSA daily walkaround on their phone, signed and photographed. When a driver adds a photo of a defect, AI looks at it and gives the manager a short note on what it can see, such as tyres, damage, leaks or lights, and the manager makes the final call. Defects go straight to the workshop and are followed through to repair and sign-off, and the records are kept for 15 months. Our guide on how long to keep walkaround and defect records covers the rules.

One honest limit: Raahi Flow doesn't import tickets or invoices from a spreadsheet or CSV file yet. Tickets come from the driver's photos, and invoices from a photo or PDF.

Compliance and cashflow come first

The survey says new technology must solve for compliance and cashflow. So ask two things before you pay for anything:

• Compliance: will it keep the records DVSA asks for, and remind you before things lapse? Raahi Flow tracks MOT, PMI, tax, insurance, driver licences and your O-licence renewal, with a nudge before each one is due. A morning brief lists what's expiring, vehicles off road and open defects, with today's priority. More on our O-licence compliance software page.
• Cashflow: will it show you, every week, which loads are on an invoice and which aren't yet, so the office can chase the right ones?

You don't need an enterprise system to get it

Size doesn't buy integration: "Enterprise fleets are no better equipped than small or medium-sized fleets." A bigger system is not automatically a better joined-up one.

A simpler route works for a small or medium fleet:

• Start with one job. Pick the weekly ticket check, or the walkaround folder, and fix that first.
• Use the phones you already have. Raahi Flow runs on any smartphone or computer and installs like a normal app with no app store download. Drivers can use it in English, Urdu, Polish, Punjabi, Romanian or Lithuanian.
• Keep the records in one place. Tickets, invoices, walkarounds and documents in one app, not across WhatsApp, a defect book and a shoebox.
• Let your own tools read the data. Raahi Flow has a read-only API for a company's own invoices, tickets, runs and trucks. Details are on the developers page.
• Pay per truck. There's a 30-day free trial on up to 3 trucks with no card needed, then £20 per truck per month, no VAT. See pricing.

If you run tippers, our tipper lorry software page shows how the whole day fits together, from the yard to the invoice.

Sources: OneAdvanced with the Road Haulage Association, UK Haulage: Technology & Resilience Benchmark Report 2026; RHA, New research from the RHA and OneAdvanced finds 91% of UK hauliers stuck beneath an "integration ceiling" (23 July 2026). Figures are as published in the report. Raahi Flow is not affiliated with the RHA or OneAdvanced.