Inbound Logistics discusses trends in road and rail freight transport.
The global focus on reducing ones carbon footprint extends to the debate between using rail and road transport for freight transport. The article explains the difference in fuel consumption for each transport method per tonne of product transported, with rail using significantly less fuel in the example provided. The result is less emissions and therefore a smaller carbon footprint. Rail also emits less nitrogen oxide and particulates than road transport.
However, many other factors need to be considered, such as rail not reaching all required sources and destinations of freight. Also, road transport can transport directly from supplier to customer without the logistics associated with the “first-mile” and “last-mile” portion that usually requires road transport.
Even considering the debate that often takes place between the use of these two transport modes, a trend is emerging that has the two modes “collaborating and optimising”. This is due to a number of factors, such as improved technologies being used by both road and rail that improve efficiencies, restrictions on truck operating hours in certain areas, problems with recruiting truck operators, and excessive empty back-haul miles on some road transport routes. The increased use of rail is therefore not just a function of it being a “greener” transport method, but rather a combination of mostly economic factors that contributes to increased interaction between rail and road.
The article was compiled by Perry A. Trunick, and can be found in the June 2011 issue of Inbound Logistics, which can be accessed at www.inboundlogistics.com.