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Co-operation is the key

8th March 2007, Page 25
8th March 2007
Page 25
Page 25, 8th March 2007 — Co-operation is the key
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

Moving freight from road to rail and water requires operators and local government to work together — so how much co-operation was

in evidence at the ETA Freight Summit 2007? Louise Cole reports.

Amajor purpose of last week's Freight Transport Association's Freight Summit was to get councillors and local authority officials into the same room as road transport operators. Curfews, deliveries and other elements of urban planning were discussed, but one of the most intransigent issues for both parties was multimodal provision.

Competition between road, rail and water is no longer a big issue, for the simple reason that road transport has won. However much talk there is of modal shifts, the fact remains that placingj ust 5% of road freight onto trains would require a doubling of the rail network.

So road haulage is not directly threatened by rail and water. In fact it would benefit from investment in those modes to alleviate congestion on our roads.

The Eddington Transport Study highlighted the freight corridors that must be opened. The ETA's transport management plans, also published last year, emphasised the need for greater nighttime running, sidings and overtaking loops which could maximise rail freight. If freight grows in line with the Treasury's economic forecasts, some trunk routes will be overwhelmed without significant steps towards an integrated multimodal approach.

Shake up the system

Sir Rod Eddington also proposed a radical shake-up of the planning system something every speaker at the Freight Summit would probably welcome.

Modal shift requires freight exchange sites throughout the UK, bringing rail and motorway together. But few councils want a depot for 400m trains and convoys of trucks on their back yards. As one councillor told Freight Summit delegates:"I know how to make the right decision I just don't know how to be elected again afterwards!"

"Rail-freight terminals are far less intrusive than they used to be, but people's perceptions colour political decisions," says James Hookham, deputy chief executive of the FTA. "We put a vastly disproportionate amount of investment and staff [at the ETA] in other modes than is justified by the number of members involved in them. But they are politically and strategically significant."

The majority of intermodal schemes are rejected, a recent example being HelioSlough's St Albans project (CM 1 March).

Keith Rodwell, co-chair of the Rail Infrastructure Investment Group,says:"Modem warehousing capacityfor freight exchange hardly exists. One of the only examples is the Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal."

One transport planner from Doncaster told Freight Summit delegates that councils were not negative about such developments but that too little room foi manoeuvre was offered: 'Private sector requirements don't meet public sector requirements. We need to work together more."

Time to work together

Lindsay Durham, head of rail freight strategy at Freightliner, agrees greater collaboration is required:"We need national planning guidance for rail freight which can be broken down to regional level."

Richard Turner, FTA chief executive, closed the conference with the hope that bringing local authorities and operators together would improve understanding and facilitate freight developments.

But it seems the local authorities will have the unenviable task of convincing their electorates of the environmental,social andconunercial importance of modal shift. •


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