SkanTrans PSL: geeing up groupage 26


The partners in SkanTrans-PSL have hit upon a novel compromise between slower, cheaper road services and faster, more expensive courier – an express road groupage service between the UK and Scandinavia. SkanTrans-PSL is part of the UK


based PSL Group of companies and was first established in 1989 with a


coming together of the four Nordic Partners – Conroute in Sweden, Modul Transport (Denmark), Itella A/S (Norway) and Varova (Finland) - with the PSL Group to form a joint venture company to service the Nordic/UK routes. The group, which celebrates


its 25th anniversary this year, already offered conventional


road groupage services between Denmark, Sweden and Norway and its UK depots at Manchester, Bradford, Hinckley and Maldon, mainly based on the long sea crossings from Immingham. But there is now also an express


road option, departing Maldon at 4pm every day and arriving in Denmark via the Channel Tunnel


and the overland route by 12 noon the following day, giving a 24-hour service to Denmark. The truck then hops over the new bridge to Malmo in Sweden, giving a 36- hour service to Sweden and then Olso, where a 36-48-hour service is available to the Oslo Fjord region. The service is based on large, 13.6m, 25-tonne capacity trailers - albeit


double-manned - rather than small vans. Costs are reasonable compared with express courier and man-with-a-van options, says PSL commercial director, Richard Gibbs. The service was started for


the benefit of SkanTrans-PSL’s customers


in the publishing


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Advanced Supply Chain Management and Logistics for Cargo Owners


NEC Birmingham 29 April to 1 May 2014


The UK and Ireland’s only event dedicated to more efficient freight transport & logistics and supply chain management


industry, he explains. Scandinavia is the largest reader of the English language in Europe outside the British Isles and there is a steady demand for mainly academic books. SkanTrans offers a pick up and delivery service from the publisher to the door of individual book shops. Bulk loads of single titles can be picked up from the publisher,


broken to down into


smaller lots and/or consolidated into deliveries


individual


book-shops – all fully trackable and traceable based on the ISBN (International Standard Book Number) printed in every book.


“We’ve been operating it for


four and a half years and now we’re planning to roll the concept out to other industries,” explains Richard Gibbs. “For example, it could be retail stores looking to replenish garment stocks in store – Scandinavia is a big market for high-end British retailers now. Or we could put goods into an e-commerce system.” The service offers near on


courier speed to many places in Scandinavia – Copenhagen in particular is pretty close to courier standard with next day, though not by-9am delivery - but without the high cost. The service is guaranteed to run every day, unlike many other conventional groupage services, Gibbs states. Also, unlike courier services, size of consignment is not limited by automated sorting systems – the only limit is the length of the truck itself, in theory. Deliveries are made throughout


Scandinavia by the four SkanTrans- PSL partners – here light vans may be used to speed things up or in thinly populated areas. The service is also available


back from Scandinavia into the UK, via Malmo, which is a good centre for Sweden and Denmark. The Scandinavian economies


are stable, if not particularly buoyant now, Richard Gibbs continues. None of them was particularly affected by the recession and Denmark is doing reasonably well although Sweden is a bit slower, he says. Like other operators, SkanTrans-PSL has seen the historical imbalance in favour of cargo from Scandinavia go into reverse in the past few years,. There isn’t too much in the way of


low-value


commodity goods such as raw timber coming out of Scandinavia these days, especially with strong currencies putting a dampener on exports.


Bring back to Birmingham


www.multimodal.org.uk Multimodal 2014 • Freight • Transport • Logistics • SCM


Bring Cargo +44 (0)20 7384 7759 | jenny.moore@clarionevents.com is expanding its


operations in Aberdeen to handle increased traffic for the offshore oil and gas sector. It has also re-established an office


and terminal in Birmingham after a seven-year absence. Traffic from the


Midlands area is growing rapidly for Bring’s Nordic and South European services and a local office was needed to service its client base. This will also allow an increase


in weekly departures to Italy and Spain.


Issue 8 2013 Freight Business Journal


///SCANDINAVIA


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