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for decades, yet industry as a whole appears stubbornly wedded to road transport. There are some good reasons for that: road transport is supremely flexible, with pretty much 100 per cent coverage; it can be organised relatively easily and, especially with today’s telematics systems, highly transparent. Rail only reaches those parts of the world where there are tracks, and transport by water – inland or coastal – has similar limitations on accessibility. Both of those alternative modes have also been plagued with disruptions in recent years and are far less reliable overall than road transport.
EUROPE HAS SET itself some daunting targets in the EU Green Deal and ‘Fit for 55’ programmes. For the supply chain in particular, there are expectations that
money to put in place. Meeting the 2030 targets, in particular, will need more than that. One obvious route to lower emissions is to move freight off the roads, as road transport
BRASS TACKS However, with rising fuel costs and a seemingly endemic shortage of heavy goods vehicle drivers in most of Europe (and other parts of the world), there is a growing appetite to use alternative modes. That is reinforced by the growing demands for sustainability in all operations; in the chemicals sector, manufacturers are acutely aware of the expectation of governments and the public about how they go about their business and they are increasingly expecting the same from their supply chain partners. The European Chemical Industry Council (Cefic) set out the issues that are holding back the shift away from road transport in a paper published this past January. It noted that the use of combined transport will be a “significant contributor” to achieving the EU Green Deal goal of reducing GHG emissions in transport by 90 per cent by 2050 but also said that measures must be taken – by policy makers, governments and the logistics industry – to further increase the attractiveness of combined transport. Cefic says there are four main action areas that would help make combined transport the first choice for chemical producers: • It must focus at all times on satisfying its customers’ needs
greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions will be radically reduced by 2030 – less than ten years away – and yet further by 2050. There is currently a lot of talk about the use of renewable energy and alternative, low- or zero-carbon fuels, but these routes to decarbonisation will take time and lot of
emits much more GHG per tonne-mile than do other modes of transport. Moving freight onto rail or making more use of inland and shortsea shipping could help in the drive to lower emissions – but that idea of a modal shift away from road is nothing new: industry and governments have been talking about it
• It must be competitive with road transport on cost • Adequate network infrastructure must be in place to access rail and enable the reliable and efficient execution of main legs • Transport chains must be fully digitised end to end, enabling seamless information
SEAMLESS DELIVERY MODAL SHIFT • COMBINED TRANSPORT WILL BE KEY TO REDUCING EMISSIONS FROM EUROPEAN FREIGHT TRANSPORT ACTIVITIES BUT WORK NEEDS TO BE DONE TO REMOVE BARRIERS TO GROWTH
HCB MONTHLY | JUNE 2022
