Memorandum from the Freight Service and
Development Committee of Railfuture (FT 02)
Question 1 Is the Department's investment
in logistics programmes—including the Sustainable Distribution
Fund—good value for money and meeting the objectives?
1.1 There are many successful examples of
value for money public resource programmes that have attracted
matching private sector investments to facilitate modal shift
from road to rail and water transport.
1.2 However, despite widespread concerns
about future mobility and therefore efficiency of road based freight,
logistics measures to promote and integrate other modes are being
curtailed, partly due to a lack of resources for freight facilities
grants. This is very unfortunate in the context of a road system
plagued with travel delays, and the stark warnings from academics
on the social, economic and environmental consequences of allowing
road traffic to grow without restriction.
1.3 We feel that the "price" of
a ton of carbon used by the Government in calculating the benefits
of switching freight from road to rail (or inland waterway) is
currently much too low, and its assumptions about future oil prices,
too optimistic.
1.4 Transfer of freight from road to rail
has also been discouraged by assuming that the presence of lorries
on motorways is relatively unproblematic compared with other types
of road. By definition, trunk rail freight services are often
paralleled by interurban motorways and other dual carriageway
roads, yet the appraisal system has always been slanted towards
relief of urban and single carriageway roads. CO2 is however emitted
on all types of road; indeed a large proportion of emissions from
road freight will be on motorways and dual carriageways.
Question 2 International distribution patterns
involving air freight increase carbon dioxide by up to 30 times
that of sea transport—what more can be done to promote modal
shift from road and air freight to inland waterway, shipping and
rail? How can the Government encourage and incentivise further
efficiency improvements?
2.1 Without financial and structural reforms,
the current market-orientated approach is unlikely to bring significant
modal shift changes from air and road.
2.2 Increased use of inland waterways and
rail as part of International distribution patterns is obviously
dependent upon integration with shipping lines at ports and hinterland
terminals.
2.3 Innovative ways should be explored of
using targeted public funding to aid trans-continental rail and
water supply chains (eg moving freight by railway from Asia to
Europe and onwards to the United Kingdom via the Channel Tunnel.
2.4 A key issue for the UK is indeed to
increase the use of the Channel Tunnel by rail freight. In this
way, there is scope to transfer millions of tonnes of international
freight from road to rail.
2.5 The biggest obstacle to this appears
to be the current level of charges levied by Eurotunnel on rail
freight, which are uncompetitive with those applying to the road
freight shuttles or ferry services. The British and French governments
need to give a high priority to resolving this issue. It is not
enough to hope that the rail companies and Eurotunnel will somehow
be able to sort things out—it is too important an issue
to ignore.
2.6 The potential use of rail to carry parcels,
mail and small high-value or perishable goods at passenger train
speeds, appears to be being overlooked. The Department should,
for example, encourage the development of such services via Eurostar
or on dedicated high-speed parcels and mail services between London,
Paris and other European cities. In turn, these trains should
connect with a revived network of domestic UK parcels and mail
services. Eurostars are able to access the soon-to-be redundant
Eurostar depot at North Pole in West London, which has good links
to most of the radial railways linking London and the UK regions,
adjoins the existing rail link to Heathrow Airport, and is close
to the Royal Mail road/rail distribution centre at Willesden.
The French already have purpose-built TGV trains for La Poste
capable of running at the same speeds as their passenger trains.
They have even bought surplus Eurostars to allow older TGVs to
be converted into postal carrying trains now that the TGV Est
is open. Use of the TGVs through the Channel Tunnel at some
point in the future may enable mail and parcels to be carried
between the UK and continental Europe at similarly high speeds.
2.7 We are concerned at the apparent wish
by the Office of Rail Regulation to establish a new charging system
for rail freight operators' use of so-called freight-only lines.
Lorry operators do not pay a separate charge to use motorway crawler
lanes or to access main and secondary roads connecting ports,
collieries, open cast loading sites and power stations. Moreover
other than a small number of cases where an additional toll is
levied, eg a bridge, tunnel or metropolis, roads are funded by
central government or adopted by local authorities and maintained
from their budgets up to the point of a private boundary.
2.8 We have no knowledge of the highway
authorities developing a method of costs recovery from public
roads heavily used by lorries with little if any passenger vehicle
traffic, such as those connecting with dock, mine and power station
estate roads. Operators of commercial vehicles pay vehicle and
fuel duty charges to have unlimited access (other than certain
local weight and dimensions restrictions) to the national road
network.
2.9 If Government is serious about cutting
CO2 emissions from transport, it certainly should not permit the
use of larger and heavier goods vehicles on the UK road network,
such as the "roadtrain" type that are being trialled.
These are likely to abstract a great deal of traffic from railways.
Question 3 Air freight in the South East
is forecast to grow from 2.2 million tonnes a year in 2003 to
14 million tonnes by 2030. Has the Department adequately planned
for the capacity and access implications of this very significant
growth? How will transport networks need to adjust to serve the
growing air freight market?
3.1 As noted above, the potential of rail
to carry low volume but high value goods at passenger train speeds,
seems to be being overlooked. Whilst trains clearly cannot substitute
for inter-continental air movements, fast mail and parcels services
could be used as an alternative to aircraft to carry such traffic
to mainland Europe via the Channel Tunnel, and indeed, between
major urban centres in the UK.
3.2 There is a need to revive the former
Red Star station-to-station parcel service involving carriage
of parcels by passenger train. This was killed off in the 1990s
by a combination of sectorisation within British Rail, followed
by rail privatisation. With rising demand to carry cycles by train,
there is case for building new trains with additional van space
that could be used either for cycle carriage or parcels, as appropriate.
This could offer transit times for parcels within the UK and "near
Continent" that are competitive with air.
3.3 For traffic that has to be moved by
air, action is needed to provide rail access at major airports,
such as Heathrow, for transhipping freight onto trains for distribution
within the UK. Otherwise, such traffic will continue to move almost
entirely by road.
Question 4 Should the Department have more
responsibility for planning and delivering integrated infrastructure
which might promote "free movement of goods"? How is
this to be balanced with the Department's other commitments? What
should be the priorities for the Transport Innovation Fund productivity
stream?
4.1 There is an urgent need to secure more
intermodal rail/road freight terminals in the South East, particularly
close to the M25. It has proved difficult to secure planning permission
for such facilities. Given the scale of investment involved, and
the risk that planning permission will ultimately not be forthcoming,
developers need a policy framework that provides reasonable assurance
that their schemes are appropriate and likely to be deliverable.
4.2 The Department needs to address this
issue through the review of Regional Spatial Strategies. It is
probably not sufficient to rely on issuing general planning guidance
to local authorities (to guide their response to planning applications),
because the site-specific requirements of terminals (access by
rail and road, neighbour impacts etc) are very challenging. Instead,
there needs to be a positive process of identifying locations
which are suitable for intermodal terminals in the RSS, and to
plan for the associated infrastructure.
4.3 It has been argued that rail infrastructure
should fall within the scope of the proposed Infrastructure Planning
Commission. This may indeed be appropriate for new or widened
railway lines, stations etc, as suggested by the CBI. However,
warehousing and other built facilities associated with intermodal
terminals cannot really be described as "infrastructure".
Rather, they are akin to conventional industrial estates, and
as such need to fall within the scope of the planning system (even
if the tracks leading to them might not). The need is for proactive
identification in the RSS of the sites where these terminals can
be built.
4.4 There is a case for direct public funding
of rail infrastructure serving intermodal facilities and distribution
centres. Occupiers of industrial premises are not required to
pay for the cost of their own roads before they can move in: these
will be funded by the developer. If no roads were provided before
occupation, businesses would doubtless decline to move into a
development. In the case of rail facilities, however, a different
situation often applies. Where sidings are added to an industrial
location after it has been built, the cost has to be borne by
the individual user, rather than being shared across all occupiers
of the site—or indeed, being a cost that the developer passes
on to the landowner through a discounted purchase price.
4.5 It may be possible to recoup the cost
of publicly funded rail freight infrastructure through the Government's
proposed Planning Gain Supplement (PGS), which is intended to
help finance the infrastructure costs of development, or an equivalent
local property tax.
4.6 The current situation whereby Network
Rail are required to meet the cost of upgrading many of their
bridges to accommodate heavier lorries, should be brought to an
end. This in effect amounts to an obligation on the rail industry
to subsidise its road haulage competitors.
Question 5 How successfully has the Government
influenced European negotiations regarding freight operations?
How could the Government help to ensure a level playing field
between UK and overseas freight companies?
5.1 One way of achieving a level playing
field would to move to distance-based road user charging. This
would ensure that overseas lorry operators were required to pay
towards the cost of their activities in this country on the same
basis as domestic hauliers. It would also help to make the level
of tax paid more proportionate to the volume of CO2 emitted—a
greater burden would need to be borne by long-distance road freight,
and less by local distribution.
5.2 Compensation based on vehicle excise
duty was the intention of the Eurovignette. To us it seems legitimate
to tax fuel (amount of vehicle use), retain VED (what type of
vehicle) and have congestion charges (regulating where vehicles
may be used).
Question 6 How effective are the Freight Quality
Partnerships in improving the local experience of freight and
deliveries? Are the restrictions on night-time deliveries still
appropriate? What impact would weakening the restrictions have
on quality of life and other factors?
6.1 Although in many cases, final delivery
of goods will need to be by road even where rail is used for the
trunk haul, efforts are needed to develop more rail-connected
industrial premises to avoid road haulage at either end of the
journey.
Question 7 How can the road safety record
of haulage vehicles be improved?
7.1 At the very least, there needs to be
better enforcement of existing laws. Media reports suggest that
significant flouting of the laws on speeding, loading and vehicle
condition is still taking place.
October 2007
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