My transport-crisis playbook.
Every case is different. But the patterns repeat. Here is the method I use on the ground to structure a cross-border transport crisis, and how I extend it with AI, without giving up human judgement.
An inspection that goes wrong drags in within hours a driver, a carrier, an insurer, sometimes a foreign police force, a lawyer, sensitive cargo and three languages. Humans judge well. They handle fragmented information badly.
It's neither a piece of software nor a product. It's the mental grid I've been applying to every crisis for ten years, kept up to date case by case.
One page per case: facts, actors, cargo, timeline, language, available documents. It's what I show when the client, the lawyer or the insurer asks “where do we stand?” One single version, shared with everyone.
Country by country, I keep the list of competent services (gendarmerie, customs, road authorities, prosecutors), the applicable procedures, legal deadlines and the right contacts. The time savings of knowing “who to call at 9 pm” are enormous.
Standard letters, appeals, contestations, requests for observations, insurance correspondence, already adapted to the country and language. I rarely start from scratch: I adjust a template to the case.
Over 1,500 inspections handled. Every case feeds the library: what worked, what didn't, what cost time. When a new case looks like an old one, I spot it fast.
I use AI tools every day in my practice. But I don't sign anything, letter, note, file, that hasn't been reviewed and approved by me. Here's the concrete split.
AI speeds things up
- Searching through a hundred pages of police reports and attachments to find one specific line.
- Quick summaries of a file for a lawyer or insurer who hasn't been following from the start.
- First drafts of letters in French, Polish or English, which I then adjust to the expected register.
- Comparison with similar past cases to identify the relevant legal angles.
Humans decide
- The strategy: contest, negotiate, settle, or wait, that call is mine, in agreement with the client.
- The tone with the authority, the insurer, the opposing counsel, it's built on ten years of relationships.
- The signature and final accountability to the client: nothing goes out without my review.
- Knowing when to say “this file isn't winnable - here's how we limit the damage”.
Client, lawyer, insurer and I are reading the same document. No more “I thought that…”. No more parallel version that derails a week later.
Every dispatch is date-stamped, archived, retrievable. If the case comes back two years later, I can reconstruct the story in minutes.
Three languages, several countries, several services: no email is lost, no information is translated twice and corrupted along the way.
This page describes a method and a professional posture, not a software product. The tools can evolve; the method is stable.
Depending on whether the crisis is already live or you want to prepare for one, the format changes. Here are the three ways I work with clients.
You have a live crisis. I come in, I structure it, and within 48 hours I send you an incident card, a risk analysis and a prioritised action plan.
You want to internalise the method. Over two to four weeks I work with your team to adapt the four pillars to your context and train the right people.
You want someone who picks up the phone when it all goes sideways. I'm your representative on French territory - inspections, disputes, communication with the authorities.