Aggressive rail marketing challenges road transport

THERE IS a distinct sign that the previous swing towards road transport has slowed, and that rail is again becoming a more aggressive competitor for domestic freight transport.
But overall, according to Mike Alistoun of the RFA (Road Freight Association) - the umbrella body for the country's for reward road hauliers - the long-standing road:v:rail battle is headed for a truce, as the swings between the two modes have begun to stabilise into a longer-term norm.
However, rail has recently indulged in some pretty aggressive marketing, he added, and the railways now have a pretty good hand on some high-value cargoes. Cargoes that they have been targeting with individual product category sections taking care of them. This, more multi-modal (road-rail) offerings, and low rates have, to some extent, negated much of the previous advantage of road transport - which had often relied on door-to-door haulage as its offering to overcome adverse price differentials.
Security has also faded as a road speciality - with vehicle and cargo hijackings raising just about as much worry about risk as the theft of containers and/or contents from rail routes.
Alistoun doesn't see any really exciting shifts likely in the near future - as an element of normality is beginning to invade the market.
He does however see some injustice in a para-statal - with all its government-induced advantages - fighting hard to make profits. It only has one sponsor and shareholder, he said. The government.
He also feels that true privatisation might induce some real, free-market normality into the domestic freight transport industry.
From data supplied to FTW by the RFA, the following are the market shares of each of the modes in domestic transport.
Some 30% of the goods travel by road, conveyed by the for reward haulier community. 19.7% of them go by rail. 50% of the cargo is carried by own account road transporters (previously called private carriers); and 0.3% goes by coastal sea and domestic air transport.
The 49.7% carried by the first two categories totals 620.797-million tons; the 50% by own account truckers 624.140-m tons; and the minor sea and air category 3.745-m tons. That's a total of 1 248.682-m tons for 1997.
By Alan Peat