The HGV has won the freight war.

P11 Comms

Thank the ILDA stikes of a few years back for some portion of the blame for this, the closure of two freight branches, the loss of several Irish Rail customers and they also gave the Government a reason to set-up the RPA as an alternative rail operator for LUAS as a form of insurance against the endless rail strikes.

A miserable situation really.


Road freight triples in 10 years - Irish Independent


IRISH hauliers transported a massive 259m tonnes of goods by road last year - over three times the amount carried 10 years ago.

Lorries are also covering more ground with a total of 2.124m kilometres travelled last year.

The figures are revealed in the latest road freight transport survey by the Central Statistics Office.

Over 29,800 vehicles were surveyed nationwide by researchers, who found that up to one third of the total weight of goods carried was in trucks that were less than three years old.

Ten-year-old vehicles were not used as intensively as the newer models and only transported 15pc of the total weight of goods carried.

Almost half of all goods transported last year were on journeys of 25km or less.

Goods received from the UK accounted for almost 92pc of all tonnage taken in from abroad and goods dispatched to the UK accounted for almost 90pc of goods transported by Irish haulage vehicles.

Ann O'Loughlin

sliabh

P11 Comms wrote:

Almost half of all goods transported last year were on journeys of 25km or less.

Interesting stat. This is a type of journey that Rail could never challenge.

P11 Comms

Indeed, that a surprisingly short distance, essentially making railfreight a non starter in Ireland for the vast majority of goods out there. Railfreight in this country realistically has little or no chance of winning a large share of the freight out there in a non-heavy industry, service enconomy such as Ireland.

Having said that, I do think that the recommendations of the Strategic Rail Review to move IE's railfreight division in a separate commerically-driven stand alone entity might be a good idea.

dmeehan

P11 Comms wrote:

I do think that the recommendations of the Strategic Rail Review to move IE's railfreight division in a separate commerically-driven stand alone entity might be a good idea.

i cant see the unions agreeing to that, more's the pity

P11 Comms

The only way out of it would be an RPA type arrangement for freight. Open access would have to come first though.