FBJ 4 FREIGHT BUSINESS JOURNAL


CONTACTS SALES


JOHN SAUNDERS - PUBLISHER Tel: +44 (0)151 427 6800 Fax: +44 (0)151 427 1796 Mobile: +44 (0)7932 102026 john.saunders@f j-online.com


RAY GIRVAN Tel: +44 (0)1691 718 045


EDITORIAL


CHRIS LEWIS - EDITOR +44 (0)7778 106433


chris.lewis@f j-online.com MIKE BRYANT PHIL HASTINGS


CIRCULATION


Tel: +44 (0)151 427 6800 circulation@f j-online.com


FBJ boasts the most informative and authoritative source of information with unrivalled in-depth knowledge of the rapidly changing freight business environment.


By Chris Lewis


The normally discreet and circumspect folk at BIFA fi nally lost patience in July, giving vent to their frustration at the lack of any concrete advice from government on what the industry needs to be doing ahead of Brexit – which, we hardly need reminding, is a scant three months away. BIFA says that the Government must step up planning and information to businesses on what they will need to do in the event of a ‘no deal’ Brexit. Vital detail on how Transitional Simplifi ed Procedures (TSP) would operate are missing, systems are largely untried, communication links between the parties yet to be established and many remaining unaware of their responsibilities or the processes to be followed. Companies are fi nding it hard or impossible to justify the cost of recruiting new staff or training existing ones. While doubtless the civil servants and politicians will cite the European elections, followed by the Conservatives’ search for a new leader and PM as an excuse for the lack of action, surely the situation is now serious enough to warrant some relaxation of the rules on political purdahs to allow essentially practical issues to be discussed.


ADVERTISEMENT PRODUCTION


LORRAINE CHRISTIAN Tel: +44 (0)151 427 6800 lorraine.christian@f j-online.com


ANDREA CAZZOLATO Tel: +44 (0)151 427 6800 andrea@f j-online.com


The Government’s latest plan to ensure that so-called critical freight keeps moving aſt er Brexit, announced in June, has the hallmarks of a knee-jerk reaction and the need to be seen to be ‘doing something’. While this time it has held back from signing multimillion pound contracts up front with ferry operators to provide extra capacity –instead taking an invitation to tender approach - as the port of Dover quite rightly pointed out, the suggestion that the extra capacity will carry only so-called ‘critical goods’ is fl awed. If by critical goods, the government means medicines and medical equipment, in logistics terms that is surely a sledgehammer to crack a nut. Such goods generally are low volume and if a consignment was urgently required, it would surely be a simple matter of ensuring that a few spaces were kept on regular ferry services to allow such traffi c to move. But if the defi nition of critical is to be somewhat wider, who makes that decision? For example, should it cover motor parts or not? Most such goods are arguably, non-critical, but what if a shortage of say, brake pads means fi re engines or ambulances being off the road? Or a supply of steel panels for a car production line? If the line shuts down and car workers get laid off work as a result, they would certainly count that as pretty critical too. As Dover says, the emphasis needs to be on ensuring a pragmatic approach by customs and the border authorities to ensure that all freight continues to move freely.


HEAD OFFICE


FREIGHT BUSINESS JOURNAL


Saunders Associates Ltd Station House Mersey Road Liverpool UK L17 6AG


Tel: +44 (0)151 427 6800 Fax: +44 (0)151 427 1796 Email: info@f j-online.com Web: www.f j-online.com


Could airfreight fi nally be on the cusp of going paperless? This has been predicted many times in the past, only for hopes to be dashed. Indeed, the fi rst transmission of an electronic forwarder’s air waybill took place back in 1993 and it has taken from then until now for the proportion of e-AWBs to climb laboriously up to around the 50% mark. The bugbear has always been the lack of standards for electronic messaging, the fragmentation of the industry with its myriad small forwarders, coupled with a lack of enthusiasm on the part of the air carriers, who seem unable to extricate themselves from the clutches of their legacy computer systems. However, IATA promises that its new scheme, ONE Record, will be diff erent. It is based on a truly modern IT platform. Moreover, the pilot schemes have been set up on the basis of clusters of users who already exchange large amounts of data with each other, while at the same time new users can quickly and easily join the party. Time will only tell if this is the breakthrough we have all been waiting for.


Closer to home, the efforts of the CCS-UK User group to develop an advance information system for Heathrow airport are to be applauded. By harnessing the power of modern technology, it should be possible to make a wealth of information available to truckers, handlers and airlines and answer the eternal questions: ‘Where has that truck got to?’ and: ‘Where’s my cargo?’ Moreover, the group’s bottom-up approach, getting the air cargo community


As the defi nitive publication within the sea, air, road and rail freight sectors, each issue includes regular news and analysis, in-depth coverage discovering the business decisions behind the news stories, shipper and exporter reports, opinion, geographical features, political and environmental issues.


If you have any stories or letters which should be of interest or any feedback on FBJ, please contact our editor Chris Lewis - +44 (0)208 6450666 chris.lewis@f j-online.com


next issue >> Germany and US East Coast.


circulation >> Our next issue will include features on: North East England,


For further details contact: John Saunders - +44 (0) 151 427 6800 john.saunders@f j-online.com


To guarantee your personal copy of FBJ please register by emailing


your details to circulation@f j-online.com or fax back the address cover sheet included with this issue.


Issue 5 2019 - Freight Business Journal From the Editor


///NEWS


FBJ is the only UK and one of the few pan-European Multimodal newspapers. The comments we have received prove there is still room for a hard copy publication within the freighting industry. You don’t have to look at a screen all day!


itself to design and populate the system probably has a much better chance of success than something imposed from on high by an airport authority or similar body. One only has to compare the recent experience of Frankfurt Airport’s attempt to introduce a slot scheme – roundly rejected by the freight industry – to realise the dangers of being too dictatorial.


One of the biggest obstacles to getting more freight onto rail is the modern, high-capacity mega-trailer. About as tall as a double-deck bus – Britain is unusual in having no formal height limit for road vehicles, unlike most of Continental Europe - these behemoths of the road can pack 96 roll cages or the equivalent into their two decks and make the capacity of the typical 40- or 45-foot swap-body or container on rail pretty puny by comparison. The economics of a rail-road operation are affected by the carrying capacity of the road leg at either end of the journey which, coupled with the cost of transferring units from one mode to another, makes rail uneconomic for many flows. Given the restrictions of the British railway loading gauge, rail will probably never realistically be able to match road operation in terms of the height of the load. However, it is possible to have longer loads on rail - in theory, anything up to 60-feet. However, for intermodal operation, nothing longer than 45 feet can be carried, as that is what current road regulations stipulate. There has therefore been a flurry of interest in Scottish-based operator Malcolm Logistics’ new ‘48 for 48’ campaign to allow slightly longer units to be carried by road, provided they form part of an intermodal move. The 48s refer to the extra length in feet and the average length of road haul to the nearest railhead in this country. Movements would need to be strictly controlled, to ensure no one was cheating by disguising a road-only move as an intermodal one and there would have to be restrictions on the routes used and careful vetting of operators and equipment. However, it could be done – and indeed something similar existed for many years with the old 44-tonne weight limit for road vehicles in intermodal transport (compared with 40 tonnes otherwise) that was superseded by the current road regulations.


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24