Traditional approach
For many years, the European Union’s transport policy taught us that the environmental harm caused by road transport was the primary premise for shifting a portion of long-distance freight transport carried out on the European continent to more environmentally friendly modes, namely rail transport, inland waterway, and short-sea shipping. A supporting argument was the increasing congestion on some European roads.
In some countries and on certain transport axes, this approach found practical application. In road-rail transport, this applies, for example, to transalpine traffic and the feeder traffic of containers to and from seaports. However, for many years, one could get the impression that the practice of the European TSL (Transport, Spedition, Logistics) industry diverged from what the EU proposed in its transport policy. The implementation of the policy consisted rather of taking individual initiatives for multimodal transport, rather than actual, systemic changes. These initiatives concerned transport processes with specific characteristics – in transalpine transport, it is the limited capacity of road corridors, and in the case of seaports, the problem of rapid distribution of thousands of containers from port quays.
EU policy seemed to forget that multimodality, as an end in itself, does not fit at all with logistics practice and the economic goals of TSL companies operating in a highly competitive market.
Concepts of TSL practitioners
On the other hand, proposals from TSL practitioners emerged to integrate rail transport, short-sea shipping, and inland waterway transport into logistics supply chains. For example, in the case of rail-road transport, at the turn of the century, there was discussion about the possibility of creating land bridges, logistics loops (ring ways, Ringzüge), the concept of dedicated freight routes (freightways) appeared on the railways, and recently there has been talk of railports. Their common feature is, as is obvious from the point of view of logistics, the implementation of long-distance rail transport in a system between logistics hubs. This is not just an initial and final hub, but several or even a dozen hubs located along the entire rail route. The hubs act as consolidation and deconsolidation centers, similar to cross-docking centers, ensuring a volume of cargo on the rail route that allows for the use of economies of scale. The consolidation-deconsolidation process is very fast and ensures high commercial speed. With sufficiently long distances, zone degression works on the cost side. According to various studies and analyses, replacing road transport with multimodal road-rail transport in European conditions becomes profitable at distances of 400 – 600 km. If technical and organizational problems could be overcome (and this is happening with the ongoing restructuring of railways in Europe), rail would be able to offer a competitive commercial speed. “Door-to-door” transport of deconsolidated cargo units is carried out by road transport.
A transport process constructed in this way takes into account the strengths of road and rail transport and allows for the effective implementation of long-distance freight transport.
New EU policy
Unfortunately, for many years, EU policy on intermodal transport did not sufficiently articulate the realities of European transport logistics and supply chains. The unfavorable modal split, increasing road transport, and the need for environmental protection were emphasized. The situation began to change during work on the revision of the White Paper on European transport policy for 2010 (2001). However, the actual discussion on a new approach to freight transport logistics and the place of intermodal transport in transport chains began in 2006. The guiding thought that accompanied this work assumed that logistics and transport policy should be more closely linked. Europe should face transport challenges by incorporating logistics thinking into its transport policy. Freight transport should be sustainable, meaning it should take into account environmental protection principles, but it should also be economically efficient and optimally use existing resources. Two new concepts appeared: comodality and freight transport logistics.
The article comes from the magazine “Logistyka” 2/2009.