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Issue 4 2014 - Freight Business Journal Eurotunnel offers more bait for freight


Eurotunnel is to extend its Incentive for Capacity Additions (ETICA) programme to further increase through rail freight traffic. It will be continued to 2018 and expanded to include new categories of traffic - new cars, food and drink transported in conventional full train loads, consumer goods,


logistics


flows, manufactured goods and permanent distribution and flows ‘suffering from obstacles outside of the Fixed Link’.


Since ETICA was put in place


in May 2013, rail freight traffic through the Channel Tunnel increased by 10% in 2013 and by 13% in the first quarter of 2014, says the tunnel operator. It was originally envisaged as providing aid for a limited period at the start up of new intermodal freight services. There will also be a 25%


reduction in charges for off peak hours – which is actually the peak time for through rail freight - from 23:00 to 07:00 on


weekdays. The Freight Transport


Association (FTA) welcomed Eurotunnel’s announcement, pointing out that it follows an ongoing European Commission investigation into the Channel Tunnel charging regimes and the decision by the Channel Tunnel Regulator obliging Eurotunnel to make its costs more transparent – something FTA has been lobbying for. FTA submitted


a report showing that a 40% cut in rail


freight tolls would lead to a more than doubling of freight trains through the tunnel. FTA’s director of global and European policy, Chris Welsh, said: “This is great news for shippers, the rail industry and the environment. We now look forward to working with Eurotunnel and its


freight management team


to promote greater use of the tunnel by shippers as part of FTA’s ongoing campaign to promote rail freight and mode shift.”


Extra green cash for modal shiſt


More money is available under the Low Carbon Freight Dividend for small and medium sized firms in the East of England seeking to shiſt containers from road to rail or water. Companies can now claim up to £20,025 each in financial support. The Low Carbon Freight


Dividend project was launched by the Haven Gateway Partnership in 2012, with the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) providing nearly £3


million towards the original £7.5 million project. Last year, the project was


extended to include coastal shipping and some shortsea routes as well as rail. This extension was supported by a further £370,000 of funding from the ERDF – which, with match funding, made the Low Carbon Freight Dividend project worth just over £8.4 million. Firms can claim a Low Carbon Freight Dividend of up to 30%


GBRf gears up for the roaring forties


Train operator GB Railfreight has signed a five-year lease with VTG Rail for 18 new Ecofret triple-platform container wagons to take advange of a boom in the 40’ market. Designed to maximise the number of 40’ boxes that can be carried in a given train length, each wagon’s outer platforms can carry one 40-foot container each, and the inner platform either one 40-foot container or two 20-foot containers. The order follows a successful 18-month trial by GBRf of one


of the wagons and delivery of the other 17 triple sets will be between November 2014 and January 2015. GBRf managing director,


John Smith, said: “VTG has revolutionised container transportation with this new model. The growing dominance of 40ft containers in the deep- sea market, infrastructure improvements at the Port of Felixstowe and changing train length regulations all mean that freight transportation demand is changing in the UK.”


per container, capped at £75, for using rail or water instead of road transport. The original limit was a maximum 90 containers per company but, following a review of the project the maximum grant has been increased from £6,750 per company to up to £20,000, said project manager Lisa Brazier. She added: “The Low Carbon


Freight Dividend was set up to encourage and support long- term behavioural change. This


increase means that we can support companies for longer, giving them more breathing space in which they can set up the processes, train staff and consider different


supply


chain solutions that can lead to permanent change and long- term modal shiſt.” The three-year project aims


to take about 33,000 containers off the roads, removing over 13 million kg of carbon dioxide from the logistics supply chain.


Rail keeps Britain


moving and death off the roads


Rail freight generates more than £1.5bn a year in economic benefits for the UK, according to a new report by the Rail Delivery


Group. According


to ‘Keeping the Lights On and the Traffic Moving’, the industry has grown 70% since privatisation on the back of investment and business improvements which have increased service quality and improved reliability. The chief executive of the Office of Rail


Regulation (ORR), describes rail freight as “the most transformed sector in the rail industry.” Every year, the rail industry


carries goods worth over £30 billion – from whisky and luxury cars to steel, cement and coal - freight that would otherwise require 7.6m more lorry journeys each year, or 1.6bn lorry kms. It also prevents around 600 casualties each year.


Schenker Limited, the UK arm of the global logistics services provider DB Schenker, is offering 15 new places for young people on its UK National Apprenticeship Programme, now in its fiſth year. Norbert Dentressangle is to buy the logistics assets of MGF, a subsidiary of the G7 Group, consisting of nine warehouses in France. With a combined total storage area of 174,000sq m, the warehouses are located mainly between Paris and Lyon, Toulouse and Marseilles.


Luxembourg-based international logistics service provider Logwin has become the sole owner of Logwin Air & Ocean India aſter it acquired all the shares of the previous minority shareholders in its national organisation there. Since its launch in 2009, Logwin has increased the original five locations to 12 and is now present in Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Karur, Kolkata, Ludhiana, Mumbai, Pune, Tuticorin and Tirupur.


Kuehne + Nagel has opened a new container freight station in Cambodia, in Phnom Penh’s special economic zone. It offers radio frequency scanning, one of only two such facilities in the country able to provide such a service.


DB Schenker in Belarus has been appointed recommended provider of logistics services for the 2014 IIHF Ice-Hockey World Championship’ in Minsk, on 9-25 May. It is offering global logistics services including air and ocean freight, land transport, customs clearance, on-site services, warehousing and local services such as team equipment transports. In Minsk it is providing extensive local team luggage services and customs procedures.


///NEWS NEWS ROUNDUP FORWARDING & LOGISTICS


Essex-based forwarder Woodland Media is to open a new office in Hong Kong to serve publishers active in the Chinese market. Part of the UK-based Woodland Group, Woodland Media is a specialist division providing logistics and supply chain solutions for the print and publishing trade, and exports more magazines from the UK than any other logistics company. The new Hong Kong operation - which will officially open on June 3, 2014 - is being established with the support of Woodland’s long-term agency partner IFB International Freightbridge.


Palletways has opened its new Benelux depot in Nijmegen, double the size of the previous facility and tailor made to suit the requirements of the network and its members. The new site offers the pallet network’s PORT system real time tracking system. Further warehousing space has also been incorporated,and the new depot will also host a Palletways Fulfilment service – the first outside the UK – with capacity for around 1,500 pallets.


Kuehne + Nagel has opened a multi-user logistics facility at Bayernhafen Nuremberg.


It includes around 30,000sq m of


transhipment and logistics areas, as well as 60 loading bays, and complies with the latest environmental and security standards.


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