Missed opportunity?

[steve1]

The UK is facing a serious shortage of HGV and delivery drivers, so much so that some retailers are seriously concerned about getting food and other goods into shops.

 

Has it occurred to anyone to consider rail as an alternative form of goods transportation?

 

Before anybody starts shouting,  I realise that it isn’t possible to start straight away, but surely it can’t be beyond the wit of logistics experts and rail companies to come up with something that could at least ease the situation?

 

It could even lead to a long term increase in returning traffic. Especially given the need to  act on climate change.

 

Possibility or pipe dream?

 

steve

[TheQ]

You need More people to run such a scheme, including twice as many drivers...

As every container / lorry load will need taking to the train by lorry , loading on the train, unloading off the train, and then delivering by lorry to it's destination. It's one of the reasons freight traffic is uneconomic by rail, unless bulk cargo like merry go round coal trains.

[iands]

I can't remember who it was now, but recently I read that one company is buying (or at least leasing) a fleet of smaller vans that doesn't require an HGV licence to drive, so can employ more non-HGV drivers to overcome the "shortage". The obvious downside will be more vehicles on the roads.

[Wickham Green too]

.... but smaller vans are more likely to be available in lovely environmentally friendly electric version !

[LBRJ]

The use of more trains and the use of "smaller" lorries sounds like a win/win to me; though whether it would all work smoothly is less certain.

 

[Nearholmer]

What is being discussed sounds pretty much like Edwardian logistics, with ‘last mile’ by electric van, as opposed to horse and cart.

 

So, yes, of course it could be made to work, and probably less Labour-intensively than in 1905, by using micro-containers and robotic handling and “van driving” (robots already do some last mile distribution where I live).

 

But, it would require an enormous reconfiguration of logistics, the location of production and distribution nodes etc etc …… having spent c60 years getting rid of railway goods terminals in every town and village, we’d need them back again, for starters.

 

Would it be greener than the greenest conceivable road distribution systems? I’m not sure it would. It might be best to focus rail on what it can indisputably do very well, which is, among other things, long distance hauls of containers to zonal (think county-wide or broader) hubs.

 

One possible ‘in’ might be something that has been experimented already: microcontainers transported by trains that are to all intents and purposes passenger trains with the seats missing, to be handled at passenger stations. To me, it sounds more suitable for parcel traffic than supermarket goods distribution, but there might be something to be done, especially if, say, one car in each passenger train can be devoted to it (Edwardian thinking again - just study how much high value, low volume freight went as ‘railway parcels’ then. For DHL, think LNWR).

 

 

Edited August 27, 2021 by Nearholmer

[F-UnitMad]

Using rail has been looked at by supermarkets & logistics companies - for decades, not just as a knee-jerk to this crisis, which to be honest has been brewing for years. HGV drivers (& ex-HGV drivers like me) all over the country can now quite rightly say "Told you so!", but no one listens to the scum of the earth...

The problem is that this country is just too small for less-than-trainload freight by rail to be economic.

Plus this :-

25 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

having spent c60 years getting rid of railway goods terminals in every town and village, we’d need them back again, for starters.

In fact some/many towns don't even have a passenger railway station, never mind a goods yard.

 

Vans instead of trucks? So instead of one artic hauling 26 1-ton pallets, you need 26 vans to move a pallet each. 26 driver's wages instead of one? Guess where that cost is going to be pushed on to.

 

Take a look at the USA. Railroads there struggle against trucks with certain freight flows, despite the size of the country and a rail network devoted overwhelmingly to freight movement, with Short Lines to do the local work as the Class 1s do the transcontinental moves. If they struggle to compete against road haulage there, then there's fat chance of returning to the majority of freight in this country moving by rail, however much we as railway enthusiasts would like it.

[LBRJ]

I would have thought (from seeing such things several times a week) that most "end mile" delivery vehicles  would cube out way before they ever gross out.

Even the gigantic double stack artics of the Blakemore Group only seem to carry a couple of dozen of the ubiquitous man handleable caged trollies.

[F-UnitMad]

3 hours ago, LBRJ said:

Even the gigantic double stack artics of the Blakemore Group only seem to carry a couple of dozen of the ubiquitous man handleable caged trollies.

Really? Only 24 cages??? 

Try 72. 

http://www.transportengineer.org.uk/transport-engineer-news/double-decker-reefers-key-trend-at-tcsd/160728

You are right about cube-out before hitting max weights, for a lot of foodstuffs anyway. Except canned goods, especially!!

[Wickham Green too]

That 4.95m high trailer ought to feature in the Bridge Bashing thread sooner or later.

[Nearholmer]

Its not just about about vehicles, its about the configuration of the logistics networks.

 

So far as I understand supermarket logistics, which is only a little, the vast majority of goods dont now travel producer-to-shop, they travel in bulk producer-to-break bulk depot, where goods are re-sorted into mixed loads for each supermarket*, the depot also acting as a bit of a buffer-store for some goods. That network model has emerged based primarily on road transport, with producers sited where practicable near good roads, and the break-bulk depots at major road nodes.

 

The Edwardian Model was different as far as I can work out, with producers of manufactured and packaged goods (of which there was already a surprising amount) consigning either smallish loads direct to particular shops from the factory by rail (and horse and cart), or sending bulk shipments to their own zonal warehouses, then re-distributing either by local rail, or direct by horse and cart. In short, lots of separate consignments arrived at a big shop, even if it so happened that several might turn-up on the same railway delivery cart. Imported dry goods like tea, coffee, dried-fruit etc were dealt with similarly, the "point of origin" being an importer's warehouse at the docks, rather than a factory. Butchers, greengrocers, and fishmongers were still separate businesses from grocers, and they had their own supply chains, often reliant on bulking at big markets in cities, re-distribution by the merchants collecting for themselves. Bakers bought their raw materials in bulk, having them delivered by rail if too far from a mill.

 

Now, traditional rail distribution was central to the Edwardian model, the two evolved in symbiosis, and rail is massively unsuitable for modern break-bulk and redistribution ....... its the wrong shape, even if it does exist, so a retuen to rail in a big way would possibly require a complete change, if not right back to the Edwardian model, then to something rather like it, or rather like the postal system, or courier systems, which share many of the same features - they have sorting depots for already small consignments, rather than break-bulk depots (there are crossovers, bulk loads that are broken in postal or courier sorting, but that gets complicated to explain). It would take control of the logistics chain out of the hands of supermarkets, which in itself could easily drive up costs, by softening the drive to military levels of efficiency, and it would certainly give supermarkets the willies over loss of control. And there would be a need to invent new logistics mechanisms for perishables that supermarkets now buy in bulk, and don't route via wholesale markets ...... getting three trays of broccoli from a field in Cornwall, or worse still two dozen chilled sea bass from a fish farm in Turkey, to a particular Tesco by rail would need a  bit of thinking about ........ there would need to be a de-bulking facility somewhere in the chain.

 

Re-railing food supply would be a huge challenge.

 

Which is probably a long-winded way of saying what I said before. Sorry!

 

*For small independent shops, the commercail Cash & Carry acts similarly to a break-bulk depot.

Edited August 27, 2021 by Nearholmer

[ess1uk]

8 hours ago, steve1 said:

The UK is facing a serious shortage of HGV and delivery drivers, so much so that some retailers are seriously concerned about getting food and other goods into shops.

 

Has it occurred to anyone to consider rail as an alternative form of goods transportation?

 

Before anybody starts shouting,  I realise that it isn’t possible to start straight away, but surely it can’t be beyond the wit of logistics experts and rail companies to come up with something that could at least ease the situation?

 

It could even lead to a long term increase in returning traffic. Especially given the need to  act on climate change.

 

Possibility or pipe dream?

 

steve

Pipe dream.

sorry.

as much as I’d like for it to happen

[Zomboid]

I think there are some flows that rail could help with, but the vast majority it just wouldn't.

 

For example, there is a Sainsbury's distribution centre in Basingstoke, next to the SWML and with space to build a siding and loading facility. What I don't know is if there's anywhere at the other end of a substantial flow which could readily be connected to the rail network.

[Nearholmer]

23 minutes ago, Zomboid said:

What I don't know is if there's anywhere at the other end of a substantial flow which could readily be connected to the rail network.

 

Fruit and veg from Almeria Province in southern Spain. Vast amounts of our strangely out of season salads come out of polytunnels there (the province is covered by them) and I know that trainloads of the stuff goes to Germany from there, I've seen it being loaded. What I don't know is whether we get any by rail already from there.

 

And, that giant biscuit factory at Willesden, which was built there a century ago precisely to allow rail distribution.

[lanchester]

Many, even most, of the major grocery chains have tried and are trying to use rail, at least over long distances - for example, goods landed at London Gateway or Felixstowe, perhaps, for Northern England or Scotland. They and their logistics partners have spent significant amounts of money and shown real commitment, but it has been difficult, to say the least, to justify. A really big problem isn't the outward flow - it is the near-impossibility of getting a back haul.

 

If you are Tesco, for example, it is actually quite easy to shift a lot of your bulk inputs to rail from ports or major manufacturing areas in, typically, the South East of England, to rail to appropriately sited Distribution Centre in the East Midlands, North East, Scotland. But with what are you going to backload those containers, and their trains, from Inverness or Tyneside or Doncaster? Road haul, you can maybe pick up a load from Aviemore to Kilmarnock, and another from Carlisle to Rugby and another from Aylesbury to a Channel port. It isn't easy, but there are some interesting IT applications on the market making some inroads. Here and across Europe, around 25% of freight truck journeys run empty; over half at well below nominal capacity (tonnage or cube - previous correspondents are quite right: almost always, trucks 'cube out' before they hit weight limits. That is partly because of inefficient/excessive packaging, which we have all experienced in home deliveries). The much-maligned EU has put a lot of Horizon 2020 research money (including ours until just recent events) into trying to find ways of making multimodal traffic more viable, but even though trans-Europe distances are typically greater and the various pilots of physical and IT technology have proved concepts, in practice it is proving very difficult to promote uptake of multi-modal in a real economy.

 

Nearholmer's Almeira fruit and veg illustrate the problem. For bulk (trainload) shipment over many hundreds of miles, train wins - but only just. And I doubt there is any significant balancing load from Germany to Iberia (and if they are shipping, say, Mercedes, there may be problems in using the same containers that ship tomatoes and salad leaves?)

 

Most logistics managers I know (and I know quite a few since I write about the subject for a living) would really like the rail option to work - but in current conditions, by and large, it don't, or not at a cost (money and time/freshness) that is acceptable to their customers, ie us.

 

[rob D2]

I’ve laid a siding in my back garden.

can somebody send me some chips ?!

 

seriously though, I’m not surprised at the lack of them. A lot of people have trained themselves at considerable cost , and then, if they can get a job , the going rate seems to be about £13 an hour. Waste of time - might as well drive for yodel .

[SamThomas]

On 27/08/2021 at 17:16, LBRJ said:

I would have thought (from seeing such things several times a week) that most "end mile" delivery vehicles  would cube out way before they ever gross out.

Even the gigantic double stack artics of the Blakemore Group only seem to carry a couple of dozen of the ubiquitous man handleable caged trollies.

I've saw 4 of them last week unloading at one of their depots - each one was full to capacity.

[SamThomas]

On 27/08/2021 at 21:42, Nearholmer said:

*For small independent shops, the commercail Cash & Carry acts similarly to a break-bulk depot.

Many of these are supplied, at least in part by the likes of Blackmores,.

[SamThomas]

Up to "Final Brexit" the logistics industry employed a high proportion of Eastern European Drivers who were prepared to work longer hours for less money so wages for UK drivers remained low.

 

Now, a high proportion of those have gone back to their home countries, making the shortfall even worse.

 

Now, the logistics industry has a huge problem it helped to create.

 

There is no quick solution, it takes time to train suitable candidates to drive HGV's.

 

In the interim, the better companies could up the wages, keeping their existing drivers (there is a lot of poaching going on at the moment), recruiting drivers & even tempt retired drivers back. Companies coulod also make better facilities for drivers & (as a small example) stop buying vehicles without A/C , decent radios & well equiped cabs (yes, I know some drivers don't derserve it).

 

Also, pay a bonus percentrage for the unsocial hours worked (getting up in the middle of the night for staring at 02:00 to 03:00H starts, weekend & bank holidays worked.

 

Another issue if the fact that HGV drivers could work as a limited liability company making efficient use of tax allowances - HMRC has now closed that one off.

 

[Bucoops]

I read that something like 40,000 LGV driving tests were cancelled due to Covid which is a major contributor to the shortage too.

[lmsforever]

Reading the very informative replies I feel very worried as to the future  as it all comes down to one thing cost .This is the bottom line  and I cant see the transport companies willing to increase wages as they must be permanently on the verge of collapse.Delivering goods anywhere is a very competertive business witness how many companies have disapeared  from the market.A potential customer has many companies to choose to carry out the work and this drives down the market. This is a situation that has no end and will be an ongoing problem for many years.

[black and decker boy]

There do appear to be moves for some new short haul rail freight. Talk of a Hull/Immingham to Doncaster flow using piggyback wagons. Perhaps tapping into the unaccompanied trailer flows into the docks?

 

existing supermarket domestic freight flows continue and do grow slowly, eg Daventry to Mossend, Grangemouth, Elderslie (and maybe Wentloog?) using swap bodies as well as containers.

 

new operators are trying to launch freight EMU to get logistics back into city centres - Orion have a fleet of 768 and 324 (all converted 319s) entering service. Varamis is another new start up seeking such flows. 
 

as said above though, we are unlikely to see a return to wagonload traffic. It’s expensive  & resource intensive, the most likely modern equivalent will be freight multiple units should the niche trials succeed.

[Nearholmer]

This could quickly get political, but IMO it’s a microcosm of the way our membership of the EU was exploited by employers, and allowed to warp our economy , creating a bizarre situation in which wages and training-costs were held down in some sectors by using Eastern European labour (the problems actually started long before that was possible, in the 1980s, when businesses massacred their training budgets, but it then got progressively worse).
 

The upshot was artificially cheap goods and services, coupled with the need to subsidise low wages with benefits in many cases.

 

My gut feel is that we are in for a painful readjustment as wages have to rise to levels where people can actually live on them, and to reflect the cost of acquiring skills, in several sectors: care homes, ‘eating out’, hotels, lorry driving spring to min, and as the screws come on for people to move from where work isn’t, to where work is, and/or businesses are squeezed to spread out a bit, rather than all huddling south of Birmingham.

 

I say all this as a firm Europhile, someone still disappointed that we hoofed out of the EU, but there is no point pretending that our economy hasn’t got badly, badly out of kilter, with many goods and services unsustainably cheap, while some people have far more disposable income that they will ever need, and others can barely rub two pennies together while working all the hours god sends in jobs that are vital to the country.

 

(AY - you only have to say, and I will delete this)

 

 

 

 

Edited August 30, 2021 by Nearholmer

[Ron Ron Ron]

3 hours ago, SamThomas said:

Up to "Final Brexit" the logistics industry employed a high proportion of Eastern European Drivers who were prepared to work longer hours for less money so wages for UK drivers remained low.

 

Now, a high proportion of those have gone back to their home countries, making the shortfall even worse.

 

Now, the logistics industry has a huge problem it helped to create.

 

 

1 hour ago, Nearholmer said:

This could quickly get political, but IMO it’s a microcosm of the way our membership of the EU was exploited by employers, and allowed to warp our economy , creating a bizarre situation in which wages and training-costs were held down in some sectors by using Eastern European labour ......

 

 

While agreeing to the sentiment that this shouldn't get too political, let's get some facts straight.

 

Brexit has played a minor part in this, even though it has added to the number of different problems affecting the driver shortage.

The Truck driver shortage has been brewing for years and it affects most of Western Europe, for many of the same reasons.

The same situation of using cheaper labour from Eastern Europe has afflicted countries like Germany too.

 

There are industry estimates that the shortage of drivers across Europe, is in the region of around 400,000.

In the UK there are widely varying estimates that the shortage here is between 60,000 and 76,000; which is indeed high.

 

In Poland, with a population that is only slightly over half of that of the UK and the source of many drivers working in Western Europe, they are short of around 124,000 drivers !!!!

 

There has been a shortfall in Germany for a few years, recently exacerbated by the pandemic, where thousands of East Europeans also went back to their home countries.

According to ‘Die Welt’ , before the pandemic, about 40,000 truck drivers retired every year, with only around 16,000 completing their training. 

They now have an estimated shortfall of 45,000 to 60,000 drivers.

Estimates predict a shortfall in Germany of 185,000 drivers by 2027.

 

France already had a reported shortfall of around 43,000 drivers, pre-pandemic.

 

These reported shortages span from Scandinavia to Spain and from Ireland to Central Europe.

The economic slow down, even shut down in some instances, as a result of the pandemic striking in 2020, reduced the amount of work and when there's no work, for many of the Eastern Europeans that meant no pay. A factor in many of them returning to their home countries.

In Germany, there has been concern that many have not come back.

 

 

.

[SamThomas]

I did not intend to make this political & my quote re : "Final Brexit" was meant to be more of a datum point. I apologise if it was taken out of context.

 

In simple terms the HGV Drivers rates will need to rise & better conditions offered.

 

There may be alternative long term solutions but in the meantime we will shortages & may very well need to prioritise deliveries & choose between McDonalds Milkshakes/Nando's Chicken** & basic foodstuffs.

 

** Both these companies have recently been bleeting about these issue.