EU Looks to encourage rail and sea transport in Italy

 

The EU commission has founded two Italian public schemes to help encourage the shift from road transport to rail and to sea. The schemes are aimed to help achieve environmental and transport objectives.

Marebonus

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Marebonus has a budget of €138 million to help shift freight transport from road to sea. This will lead to less pollution and less traffic on the roads. Majority of the budget will go to shippers to help cover the cost of extra services and upgrading existing shipping routes.

The Rail Freight scheme

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The EU is aiming to spend €255 million. The majority of this money will go to subsidising rail transport operators. This will bring down the prices of rail transport and make it more appealing to freight transport companies; this will lead to lower road congestions. Also, this scheme will help the EU lower carbon emissions since rail freight transport is less polluting alternative to road freight transport.

Read the Full EU press release here

 
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European express prices soar as the panic hits

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This week we have seen a massive increase in European express enquiries for pre-Christmas deliveries. At the start of the week prices were pretty normal. As the week drew on and express operators were trying to position their vehicles to get their drivers home for Christmas, prices have soared as many European operators have been quoting jobs and factoring in running back home empty.

The skills for us to maintain our express prices at a reasonable level is to engage the right driver on the right job at the right time.  Loading a foreign driver to deliver in the UK on 22nd / 23rd December will incur a high surcharge as there is no guarantee they will get a load back to their country of origin from the UK.

We look to back load as many UK drivers as we can for UK deliveries just before Christmas and as many foreign drivers as we can for European deliveries. Horses for courses. It’s not always easy getting the right driver in the right place but that’s our job and what we need to be doing for our  customers. They rely on us to get the best deal for them by using our knowledge and supplier network.

We see this mad panic every year. It’s like people forget about Christmas and the fact that drivers need to get home too. The express transport market will get back to normal in the New Year and no doubt we will see a return to the madness again next year.

Don’t forget we are still offering a Money Back Guarantee on all European express van work. If we’re late, you don’t pay the rate. Still a few drivers to get home for Christmas so give us a call.

 

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or call our express experts on 01543 412306

The Future of freight transport

There are lots of technologies which are currently being developed, which can change freight transport forever.

UAVs/Drones

 
Drones with a lot of development have the potential to be used in the logistics. They have the possibility of relieving roads of traffic. We could also see swarms of these drones in the skies delivering pallets!

A company called 7-Eleven has beaten Google and Amazon. They have claimed to have made 77 deliveries. Amazon look to introduce a service called Amazon Prime Air which would make deliveries from five pounds.

Advantages of Using Drones in Freight transport would be:

  • Drones would make deliveries/pickups from locations with poor road networks easier.
  • Drones would take pressure off the roads in inner cities which will lower the chances of congestion.

Driver-less Vehicles

 

The possibility of driver-less cars are coming ever closer and there is nothing to say that we wouldn’t see driver-less trucks.

Advantages of using Driver-less Vehicles in freight transport would be:

  • From driver-less vehicles we will see savings in labour, fuel, insurance and vehicle utilisation. The savings altogether are estimated to be around £34 billion.
  • We will also see less delays on road transport since driver-less trucks wont need breaks.

 

Electronic Trucks

Electric cars are becoming more common on the roads. Development on electric trucks has begun. Mercedes-Benz has created the first fully electric truck which has a range of 200Km. The biggest problem with electric truck is that they will take a long time to charge.

Advantages of electric trucks in freight transport:

  • Its cheaper to charge a truck then fill it up with petrol.
  • Trucks are big emitters of Co2. The use of electric trucks will not emit any Co2. No emissions will lead to lower road tax.

these are just a few advantages.
 

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UK’s Top 3 European Importers

The UK Exports goods and services to France. In 2013 this totalled  to £21.5 Billion in 2013. In 2014 this rose to an estimated £26.31 Billion.

Frances top 10 imports from the UK
1. Vehicles
2. Machinery
3. Oil
4. Electronic equipment
5. Aircraft, spacecraft
6. Pharmaceuticals
7. Plastics
8. Beverages
9. Medical, technical equipment
10. Organic chemicals

The UK exported £29 billion worth of goods to Germany in 2013 this amounts to 1 in 10 of all exports.

Germany’s top 10 imports from the UK
1. Machinery
2. Electronic equipment

3. Pharmaceuticals
4. Vehicles
5. Aircraft, spacecraft
6. Oil
7. Plastics
8. Medical, technical equipment
9. Other chemical goods
10. Organic chemicals

Switzerland imported an estimated £25.9 billion of UK goods and services which makes up 12.7% of their imports.

Switzerland’s top 10 imports from the UK
1. Gems, precious metals
2. Organic chemicals
3. Vehicles
4. Machinery
5. Aircraft
6. Collector items
7. Pharmaceuticals
8. Electronic equipment
9. Medical equipment
10. Clocks and watches

Brexit… 5 months on… A forwarder’s perspective.

espace-lorry

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Interview with Tony Shally. M.D Espace Europe, a European road freight specialist.
Question : How did you feel now 5 months on from the Brexit referendum.
Tony : As the owner of a European road freight company, we rely on the free movement of goods within Europe and a strong Pound to keep our haulage costs down. The 24th June was a very grim day for me, my staff and for the majority of people working in our industry. I feel a bit more positive now. Well I couldn’t feel any worse than I did that day. We have weathered a difficult 5 months and still hit our targets but I know there are tough times ahead.

Question : What’s happened in the European road freight industry since Brexit and how has it affected Espace?
Tony : Our customers have told us that they have been getting more enquiries from their European customers and from new prospective customers. They sent out a lot of quotes and seen some small short term increases in export business.
In the 5 months since Brexit, we have seen a 7% increase in export shipment numbers compared to the 5 months before Brexit. There’s been a very small fall in import shipment numbers for us. We are mostly export driven.
As we pay over half our suppliers in Euros, we have seen our European haulage costs rise dramatically due to the 10% reduction in the value of the Pound against the Euro. We hedged our Euro currency purchases well the day before Brexit, but we have now pretty much used up this pre-bought currency.
Many forwarders did not hedge and within a few weeks had Currency Adjustment charges in place. We currently have a range of CAFs from our suppliers between 6 and 10%. Even though we hedged well, our margin has dropped by over 3% as a result of the weak Pound.
We’ve been speaking to some of our customers to see if they can now pay us in Euros. A few have agreed but most don’t hold an excess of Euros each month so have asked to stay with a Sterling charge from us.
We are now also speaking to some of our customers to try to implement a currency surcharge. Most are sympathetic, but it does not stop some going out on the market to look for cheaper solutions. It’s even worse for our import customers. Their goods are costing them 10% more now to import and we are asking them for increases to cover the increases in our import haulage costs. With import charges approximately double or even triple the export cost, these surcharges can mount into the £100s per import full load.

Question : How optimistic are you about the future for European road freight and how do you think it is going to be affected if we leave the Single market?
Tony : Espace and our competitors are all in the same boat. Companies will still need to get their goods to and from Europe by road. If we lose the free movement of goods, we are all going to get bogged down again in customs issues potentially slowing down the delivery of our customer’s freight. I am concerned about the effect the triggering of Article 50 will have on our industry. We have had nearly 24 years of free movement of goods across European borders. Many European supply chains have been geared up to work on a Just in Time basis.
Drivers haven’t had to stop for long periods of time at border crossings and customs agents. Many exporters and importers now just hold some emergency or minimum stock levels. What they need to keep production going arrives on our trailers when they need it. We could pretty much guarantee this would happen. With 25% of our business now in the European time-critical sector, if we are forced to revert to how it used to be with all goods needing to be customs cleared, there is no way we can provide any guarantees anymore on deliveries. We will be in the hands of the customs agents and border officials as to when our vehicles are released.
Also, the Pound’s volatility is a big concern. With growing concerns about what might happen and no clear Brexit plan 5 months on, I can only see the Pound plummeting further in value. Freight rates will shoot up again, customers who once valued service over price may be forced to buy solely on price, cutting out companies like Espace who sell on value-added. The biggest companies with the biggest buying power will at a considerable advantage, if rate sensitivity becomes a real issue.
I just hope our politicians realise sooner rather than later that Europe won’t let us have our cake and eat it. Free trade and 100% control on immigration will both not be granted to us. We need skilled and unskilled people to come into the UK to help our economy grow. We don’t need bureaucratic customs procedures imposed on us after 24 years of free trade. It will be a disaster for the UK and Europe, after all if they do it to us we will do it to them. I just hope sense prevails and our politicians are ready to make compromises to get us the best deal we can to maintain the status quo, encourage investment and keep our currency stable.
Interview with Tony Shally : M.D Espace Europe Ltd www.espaceglobalfreight.com