TPN adds parcels 22 into the not focusing


The Pallet Network (Ireland) expanded


parcel


business earlier this year, aiming to sweat its existing assets in Ireland. “Unlike the dedicated parcel guys the trucking network is


already


there, and the new service allows our depots to maximise their van usage,” explains MD Seamus McGowan. “We’re


on


home delivery - it’s still mainly B2B, although some of our 23 members are carrying parcels already for networks like UPS and TNT,” he adds. “Now we want to get members selling this as a new service to their existing customers. “Each depot has 50 to 70


regular pallet clients who would be happy to give us a few cartons. It’s a chunk of additional business they can capture at very little on-cost. We’re currently handling


around 2,000 parcels per week.” Most TPN depots will have


vans dedicated to the larger towns in their territory and simply put parcels on their larger trucks to and from outlying areas. “If there was an increase in home deliveries we would have to reassess the situation, but we’re not looking for big volumes,” McGowan says. TPN’s main pallet business is


10% up this year at 18,000 pallets a week, which breaks down into about 7,000 from the Dublin area and 11,000 from the rest of Ireland. Imports are up, and the network is taking around 170 UK-originating pallets per night into its Blanchardstown hub in the north-west of the capital, up from 120 a year ago. “In the last few years 1,500


licensed hauliers have gone out of business but none of our


members have gone down,” McGowan says. However, consolidation has been seen at pallet network level, with TPN’s historic four competitors reducing to two as Pall-Trans and Pallet Express merged and JMC joined forces with ONCE. “We held a tenth birthday


party here in the hub earlier this year to say thank you to members, six of whom have been with us right from the beginning,” McGowan says. The six long servers, shown


in our photo, are from Breffni Couriers in Louth at


(couple left); Langan Couriers,


Galway; AM Transport, Antrim; Independent Express Cargo, Dublin (founder and TPN Ireland chairman Owen Cooke; Liam Connolly Roadfreight, Fermanagh; and Tuckmill Transport, Wexford. In a mark of increased throughput, TPN has


subdivided its Cork territory. K&L continues to handle the north-west of the county and Kerry, and Cork Express Pallets Cork city and the north-east, while Gash Transport has been recruited to handle west Cork. “What appears to be driving


our growth nationally is that people are spending again and business is restocking for the first time since 2008-09,” McGowan says. “Companies are coming to us now that are unable to find storage. Transport companies got rid of space any way they could and exited rent agreements. What’s still in operation has filled up.” Yet, while imports from


fast-moving consumer goods to building supplies are now accelerating, rates remain under severe pressure. “We try to hold the line, but the market price is just too low. We’re 20% below the level of five years


ago,” McGowan says. “We succeeded through the


Irish Road Haulage Association in getting a diesel rebate, but we need to see a reduction in road tax for commercial vehicles. It can be up to €5,000 here compared with €600 in Northern Ireland. “We are the only country


that taxes vehicles on unladen weight. You see firms taxing lightweight trailers that they will never use commercially. (It’s worthwhile for unscrupulous companies to acquire a skeleton trailer, tax that but instead use much heavier, untaxed


trailers, alleges McGowan). We have to switch to gross vehicle weight, like the rest of Europe. Thousands of jobs are being lost to the European haulage industry.” The number of trucks


licensed in [the Republic of] Ireland fell from 19,000 in 2009 to 15,000 last year, while in


Northern Ireland mainly because was an increase of 1,000.


there “It’s


now increasing again here, but


own-


account drivers are registering themselves as hire and reward operators to get the fuel rebate,” McGowan suggests.


Issue 7 2014 - Freight Business Journal


///IRELAND


Sure footed solutions


Much of Ireland’s recent success is built on freight movements controlled from the country but not physically originating or ending there. For a textbook example. of this formula, look no further than Surefreight Global Forwarding. Established on the back of Newry-headquartered


storage


and distribution company Surefreight, which this year marks its 25th year of operation, Surefreight Global opened in Belfast port in May 2012. The company offers deepsea


shipping, air freight, European trailer and container services and import-export customs clearance


in addition to UK and Ireland full loads and part loads. Its footprint is


genuinely global, explains


director Stephen Nelson. Surefreight Global opened a Miami office at the start of this year which Nelson describes as ‘Amazon-ready’. Loose cargo from suppliers in China is delivered into a 15,000sq metre warehouse and pallets prepared to the e-tailer’s specification. “We began with one box per


month going to the US but in the last three months that has increased to two, and we’re also doing LCL,” he says. In Telford meanwhile,


Mail Solutions, the UK’s second


largest producer of envelopes, has offered


some warehouse


space which Surefreight Global is now using to store products from furniture to tyres and to prepare online orders, on the US model, for transfer to Amazon’s distribution hubs. An air freight office that opened


near Heathrow earlier this year is


also “gaining momentum,”


Nelson says. Surefreight Global has shipped UK export UK cargo to India and China and - fulfilling a highly unusual request at a time when airlines are still losing modal share to ocean - recently had to fly 16 tonnes of ball valves to Brazil.


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