NEWS\\\


Issue 7 2018 - Freight Business Journal


P&O Ferrymasters and Ferries – better together


P&O Ferrymasters and P&O –sister companies within the DP World Group – are increasingly working together. Bas Belder, managing director of P&O Ferrymasters, can point to several instances where the ‘Joint Forces’ programme have helped grow the overall business. One is the new lo lo service


introduced on the Zeebrugge to Hull route last year. Ferrymasters was able to draw on P&O Ferries ship and terminal operating expertise to develop the service which provides vital extra capacity for containers across the North Sea. “It’s going very well and it’s


definitely something that we’re thinking of developing more – initially by reconfiguring the ship to increase capacity,” Belder explains. The lo lo service is in fact only


part of a chain of intermodal services that stretch from Eastern Europe and Italy right through to


the UK and Ireland. Ferrymasters is one of the leading European rail operators, running its own chartered


block trains from


terminals in Poland and Romania into Rotterdam Europort and Zeebrugge. As well as its own lo lo ship on the Zeebrugge-Hull route, it also takes space on ferries operated by its sister company and other operators to reach destinations throughout the UK and Ireland. Ferrymasters is in fact one of


the few companies that operates its own intermodal equipment on a pan-European basis and is one of the largest companies in that particular niche. The company has evolved over the past decade from one that concentrated mainly on the UK market into a truly continental operation. Also, a large part of the company’s business now consists of freight management and contract logistics,


including major operations for the likes of Tata steel using a fleet of dedicated coil carriers. The freight management part of the business has undertaken tasks as varied as sequenced delivery of a new heating system to the Sistine Chapel to replacing the mattresses in a cruise ship in Italy. Keeping control is key to


possible with services operated by third parties. Operating its own trains has allowed Ferrymasters to be more flexible to its customers, offering capacity not just for containers but trailers too. Business is growing pretty


rapidly, he adds. Evidence of this is the planned 10,000sq m extension of the Oradea rail terminal in Romania, investment in 240 new swapbodies – as an alternative to 45’ containers - and the near universal introduction of rail-road capable huckepack trailers into the road fleet.


shipments in real time through dedicated web portals. Ferrymasters has invested in


tracking and tracing technology, a vital tool in increasing customer satisfaction and also freeing up staff from answering endless phone and email queries about where their goods are. Battery technology has now developed to the point where reliable tracking devices are a reality for unpowered units like unaccompanied trailers and the company is also trialling a new solar-powered device capable of fulfilling the even more demanding requirements of containers. It has 100 such devices on test and will decide whether to universally adopt them early next year. Rail services from Poland have


just been increased from six to seven per week, and more are planned. The


Czech Republic


Ferrymasters success, Belder continues. The company’s philosophy is, wherever possible, to charter its own block trains. While this does mean taking on a financial risk, it gives a degree of control not


The company recently invested in 150 more huckepack units for its rail service between Poznan in Poland and Rotterdam, all fitted with telematics systems to enable customers to track and trace their


is the next likely market where Ferrymasters will start operating its own trains, Belder says. Rail traffic is growing, says Belder,


owing to the growing difficulties of finding truck drivers, problems on the roads and company green


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policies. Rail is becoming viable against road over ever-shorter distances, Belder believes, for as little as 300km – for example between Germany and Benelux or between France and Belgium. The company is also looking at


whether it could make more use of rail for the UK leg of its operations, although own-train operation would be more difficult here. “It’s not that there isn’t the volume, but more because the UK is still mainly an inbound market,” Belder explains. Nevertheless, there are some exciting possibilities, including the new Stobart- operated rail service from Tilbury (where P&O Ferries is planning a major new terminal) to Daventry and Scotland. More lo lo ship services to the


UK are also possible, very likely to other ports in north-east England. As well as the west, Ferrymasters


is also looking east. In conjunction with its DPW parent, it has just opened an office in Istanbul, another example of the synergies possible within the wider group, says Belder.


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