Automakers building and selling cars in Europe are reluctantly bowing to pressure to switch more of their logistics operations from road to rail.
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Some manufacturers such as the Volkswagen group, Ford of Europe and PSA/Peugeot-Citroen rely heavily on rail for transporting finished vehicles, according to the Automotive Logistics Report Europe 2004 done by consultancy Transport Intelligence of Swindon, England.
Others such as Mercedes-Benz and General Motors Europe are looking at ways to increase the movement of finished vehicles by rail, Automotive News Europe reported.
“Almost universally vehicle manufacturers would prefer to use road as under most criteria it is cheaper, certainly more flexible and more reliable,” said the report. “However they feel under pressure to avoid using road.”
Governments – especially those in Alpine countries – want to reduce truck journeys to protect the environment and local communities from noise and air pollution.
“We are encouraging freight to move onto railway,” said Gregor Saladin from the Swiss Federal Office of Transport.
Currently 1.4 million trucks a year move across the Swiss Alps and the Swiss government wants to reduce that by more than half to 665,000 by 2009.
In Switzerland, 55% of traffic is transit – cargo that does not originate or end in the country. Two-thirds of transport through the Swiss Alps is already on rail.
The Austrian government has a programme called RoLa that encourages companies to use rail instead of the road to transport goods. Two-thirds of Austria transport through the Alps still goes by truck.
German automakers show a preference for rail over road for both inbound and outbound logistics “in large part due to political pressure in Germany and Austria against road transport,” reported Transport Intelligence.
Automakers find rail useful for transporting large quantities over long distances, but complain about the lack of reliability and lack of responsiveness to their needs from Europe’s bureaucratic, state-run railroads.
Manufacturers say they need the flexibility of truck transport for just-in-time and just-in-sequence component deliveries, which cut down on inventory costs and maximise supply chain efficiencies.
Road transport still dominates finished vehicle logistics, said Richard Lawson, president of the European Car-Transport Group of Interest, a non-profit organisation of 55 leading vehicle logistics providers.
“The rail infrastructure is not in place to handle the lead times required by carmakers for delivering finished vehicles to the market,” said Lawson.
“A pan-European [rail] system is a long way off.”
