F3 (Fast, Frequent, Fulfilment) freight project
Client: Innovate UK/Department for Transport, 2017-19
Rail freight in Britain has continued on a commercial footing since privatisation in 1995. It has managed to replace traffics lost from the demise of the coal industry, including through growth in the maritime container sector, bringing to urban areas goods imported through (in particular) Felixstowe and Southampton. However, it has been rather less successful in carrying domestic goods, even those which are containerised.
This ‘applied research’ project brought together TruckTrain Industries, RCL, Preston Solutions and Newcastle University to think through all aspect of the domestic railfreight offer. Through a combination of commercial and operational modelling, site visits to terminals, field observations, loading and unloading trials at Long Marston, considerable insights were learnt. It became apparent that the railfreight sector was not being very pro-active, through a lack of detailed market knowledge (some of which was available to us in our study) and because its offers were slightly weak in many respects. Although some of the physical issues (e.g. small loading gauge) are well-known, these are often used as an excuse for poor service: for instance, we observed that ‘best practice’ for unloading and reloading a train was 90 minutes, whilst some operators seemed to require up to 7 hours. We deduced that improvements on as many as 11 characteristics might be needed, in order to gain traffic - but that the prize was substantial. Five attempts to run a trial train between Wellingborough, Warrington and Middlesbrough failed, for a multiplicity of reasons, further underscoring the difficulties this sector has in delivering - but enhancing our comprehension of the underlying reasons.
A lack of understanding of the systems nature of the business (trucking + terminal + train, which are of almost equal importance cost-wise, in the total railfreight offer) seemed to have led some operators to concentrate on the wrong aspects. For instance, pressure on network capacity from Network Rail has given a great emphasis on train paths, even though running longer trains has adverse impacts for terminal times and wagon utilisation. It also makes the service unattractive to those with only medium (as opposed to large) traffic flows. We therefore explored alternative methods of operation, which enable the use of a wider range of smaller terminals, bringing traffic closer to potential customers: this is important as we had calculated that, under existing competitive conditions in Britain, railfreight cannot support total trucking distances between railhead and origin/destination of more than 25 miles per flow. Accessing a greater number of terminals therefore brings rail much closer to, and makes it more attractive to, more shippers.
With increased environmental awareness, Brexit and an ever-increasing shortage of truck drivers, there are multiple positive pressures to improve railfreight. Some of these have already been taken up e.g. the twice-daily Teesport-Doncaster train run on behalf of Ikea, which uses only one set of wagons, a principle espoused by F3. However, TruckTrain Industries and RCL are trying to take this project forward more commercially, as our insights seem to suggest considerable untapped opportunity.
Last updated: Monday, 1st February 2021
https://www.railwayconsultancy.com/projects/f3.php
© 1996-2024 The Railway Consultancy Ltd