Why Consider Rail
"There is considerable pressure to see lorries off the road, but at the same time we all want full shelves in the shops and the ability to purchase almost anything, at any time, anywhere, all at a competitive price.
Bearing in mind supply chain efficiency is key to delivering all these things I'm not prepared to risk using rail just because it's perceived as a 'good thing'.
What are the commercial benefits rail freight can offer me?"
Like sea freight or air freight, rail freight has considerable strengths to draw on in complementing a road based supply chain. These include:
- Reliable, consistent departure and arrival times giving predictability.
- Known transit times to plan around.
- High maximum payload capacity.
- Reduced exposure to driver's hours and working time directive issues.
- Excellent load security.
- Protection from the effects of road congestion.
- Less direct exposure to fuel price variance.
Many successful parcel and pallet networks survive because of the efficiency of scheduled collection and departure times of trunk vehicles at the core of their business. The key feature of rail is that by its very nature it has to run to a timetable therefore the opportunity exists to build into the supply chain a ‘core’ trunk by rail, just as international parcel businesses build networks around their scheduled air freight movements.
With planning & minor modification to distribution patterns within a supply chain the advantages of rail can be substantial. The big advantages come where distribution centre and consolidation activity happen at a location which is directly rail connected, removing entirely the cost of onward road distribution.
Marks and Spencer have made this move for certain flows and have found using rail in the trunk haul increases efficiency in a number of areas.
- Pallets can be loaded higher and suffer less packaging damage due to the smoother ride of rail.
- Per pallet, unloading is up to 15% more efficient from a rail wagon than HGV.
- Congestion is reduced at the distribution centre where in and outbound vehicles no longer juggle using the same loading docks.
There are genuine and significant commercial advantages of integrating rail into the supply chain by understanding and drawing on the strengths it can offer.
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