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Issue 3 2014 Freight Business Journal Palletline adds logistics network


Hauliers involved in the Palletline pallet delivery network have launched what they say is the UK’s first member-owned logistics provider. PLUS Logistics (Pallet-Line United Services) will offer a range of contract logistics services in the UK and Europe including warehousing and storage, pick and pack, consolidation services and click and collect. PLUS Logistics will run alongside the Palletline palletised freight service. Palltline managing director,


Kevin Buchanan, said: “With the combined resource of 69 member organisations working across 79 locations, PLUS Logistics will have unrivalled infrastructure, a wealth of experience from its members and long established partnerships, 12,000 dedicated and committed employees and a network that reaches out across the UK and Europe.” He added: “We believe that PLUS


Logistics will meet a growing need in the industry and we are confident that based on our proud history of delivery, we will, once again evolve to become the first member-owned


logistics network.” PLUS would be able to offer a


Continental European service in 26 countries, as part of a comprehensive offering of value- added services, Buchanan told FBJ. Its membership includes DSV, Europa and Dachser, all of whom offer regular daily capacity between the UK and the rest of the EU. While individual Palletline


members already offer logistics services, marketing them under the PLUS banner would give them more clout and credibility in the market alongside the established 3PL and 4PL companies, Buchanan believes. “Also, we would be able to do things


that they can’t do – our members actually own and operate trucks.” PLUS would not necessarily


cater only to palletised freight, but it would be able to make use of downtime in the Palletline operation. Initially at least it will use many of the same resources as the pallet network, but it will increasingly develop its own fleet and operations. Some vehicles in the London area have already been branded as PLUS and others are expected to follow, with the result that PLUS-branded trucks will become as common a sight as Palletline vehicles over the next five years or so.


Menlo launches freight


Menlo is to offer its Freight Brokerage


service in Europe,


bringing a style of 3PL warehousing and supply chain management services already very common in North America to the UK and Continent. It describes the service as a cost-effective multimodal transportation booking and management solution for commercial and industrial businesses throughout Europe. A team of experienced


transport managers is based at Menlo’s European headquarters in Amsterdam and the concept has undergone a year of preparation and trial operation before being launched. “Menlo has operated a


Left to right: section leader Keith Parr, operations director Iain Brown, managing director Kevin Buchanan, finance director Ruth Moor, sales and marketing director Martin Rantle and lead driver Dave Elliott.


successful and growing freight brokerage operation in North America since 2007 under our sister company, Con-way Multimodal,” says managing director for Menlo Logistics in Europe, Tony Gunn. “We are confident that our philosophy of reducing cost and minimising waste in


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process will appeal to the European market for freight brokerage services. The test strategy we have employed over the past twelve months has


validated this approach and we are very pleased with the up-take from a wide range of customers.” The nascent European Freight


Brokerage operation is now managing over five hundred shipments per month across all types of freight and modes of transport including truckloads, parcels, groupage, full containers and LCL, air freight and ocean shipments. Most volume has been intra-Europe but Asian and North American-destined cargo has also been handled. Menlo says it has access to


around 11,000 transport providers – road hauliers and multimodal operators - and he believes that Europe is ready to embrace the idea. “We already have a very large freight brokerage operation in North America,” he told FBJ. “But the European market is still very fragmented and the concept has been slow to take off.” Europe’s many language and national boundaries have probably impeded progress, he said. Unlike most online freight


exchanges, the Menlo Freight Brokerage service incorporates a large human element, although booking through the web or EDI is certainly possible. Users can book shipments by entering origin


///NEWS brokerage service in Europe


and start points plus dimensions, description of the goods and so on, but expert staff are always on hand to help guide the customer – and especially so with more complex work. In North America, meanwhile,


the brokerage market is in danger of saturation, with no fewer than 10,000 companies now vying for a share of the business, Gunn calculates. That does include very small players, “but the market there is in danger of commoditisation,” he says. The European freight brokerage


operation is headed by Richard de Ritter who has eight years with Menlo managing transport solutions for customers of the company’s logistics services. He says: “We are able to leverage the wealth of experience and knowledge of the European transportation and logistics market already existing within the Menlo organisation.” A core value of the company’s operation is a commitment


to


waste reduction and identifying where savings in time and money can be made. Menlo sees this aspect as a key differentiator of its service when compared with brokers that merely quote a rate and find a truck.


Europa set to open in Nottingham


Europa Worldwide Logistics, the company bought out by former RH Freight boss Andrew Baxter, is planning to open a new office in Nottingham within three months. Europa had an aspiration to fill a gap in its UK network in the East Midlands for some time, and has now selected the city as geographically the best located. Andrew Baxter stressed that


the move was nothing to do with a desire to take business from Kuehne & Nagel, the company which took over RH Freight and


which was headquartered in the city, although a non-competition clause with Europa has now expired. “Nottingham simply fills a gap in the network for us, between our new office in Leeds and Manchester,” Baxter told FBJ. Europa has already opened


an office in Leeds, bringing its network to nine branches, plus its hubs at Birmingham and the London area. It is also building a new London


area hub at Dartford, into which it will move its current operation in


Erith in about May 2015. There, it plans to greatly expand its logistics service, alongside increasing its European road groupage services to daily to most destinations. Europa Worldwide Logistics


and its partner Erontrans are meanwhile increasing their service to and from Grabica near Lodz in Poland to four times a week. The service now operates to and from Europa’s southern hub in Erith with connections to other hubs in Europa’s UK network.


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The European Shippers’ Council (ESC), the European association of freight forwarders and logistics service providers (Clecat) and the European Intermodal Association (EIA) have urged the EU to amend its regulation on the intermodal transport of 45-foot containers. The associations are unhappy at the additional condition


proposed by the Commission, in a proposed directive on cross- border transport, to limit the use of these containers to road legs of under 300km or as far as the closest terminals where there is a regular service. Clecat director-general


Nicolette van der Jagt said that some existing operations would be rendered impossible by a


300km limit. In April 2013, the Commission


published a proposed directive laying down the maximum authorised dimensions and weights for certain road vehicles which included measures to allow the cross- border transport such boxes by road as part of an intermodal transport operation.


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