Focus on the wishes of the shippers

Combined rail / road transport requires an integrated approach to the house – house transport solution. Westerman Multimodal Logistics (Westerman) is a family business that has existed for more than 140 years. Partly thanks to the former Union factory, our company has traditionally specialized in the distribution of bicycles. In addition, we also provide Value Added Logistics for the bicycle industry from our 60,000 m2 warehouse in Nieuwleusen, where we assemble cargo bicycles, among other things, Babboe. Westerman has now developed into a multimodal logistics service provider with its own barges and international transports for various transport flows, including intermodal solutions via rail. On September 1 we started our own company block train from Venlo / Kaldenkirchen to Norrköping in Sweden. The choice of Venlo / Kaldenkirchen instead of a terminal closer to Hasselt / Nieuwleusen has a number of reasons. In the first place, the center of gravity of our cargo is located in the south of the Netherlands. Secondly, Kaldenkirchen is an interesting hub for connections to Italy and thirdly, the route to Sweden always passes Osnabrück. You quickly drive 100 kilometers by rail from the Northern Netherlands. The reason we choose our own block train is that we want to have a better grip on the intermodal transport chain. We always approach intermodal transport from the house-house concept, whereby we organize the solution according to the needs of the customers. This is not always possible with a public train.

When we sit at the table with a shipper, he primarily needs the load to arrive at the customer on time and cost-efficiently. How we organize that does not really matter to the shipper … Although…? The enormous CO2 savings will weigh more and more and that’s exactly where we make the difference.. If for some reason it is not possible to transport by rail, we will provide a backup by road. The customer does not notice this and does not want to notice it. In the regular concept with a neutral operator, you have to deal with more links, where there is a chance that sub-optimization will occur. There is a lot of in-depth knowledge among the various chain players, but this knowledge is too fragmented. Some operators are therefore so strongly focused on terminal terminal transport, the question being whether that service is optimally suited to function as an integral part of house and house transport. After all, the customer has a certain representation of reliability, of transit time and of cost price. You have to respond to that. I therefore believe that we should integrate the existing knowledge in the chain much better. In intermodal rail transport, for example, there is always a tension between cost optimization on the one hand and the quality / reliability of the service on the other. Locomotives and wagons are expensive assets, so utilization is very important from the rail operator’s perspective. But the question is: are you willing to accept higher costs in certain places in the chain to improve overall performance and cost efficiency? For example, from the operator’s and rail freight operator’s perspective, it may be desirable for a particular train to arrive early in the morning due to an efficient tour, while we as a logistics service provider benefit from the same train arriving the night before. That way we can use the night as a buffer if the train is delayed along the way. Including the timetable is therefore a very important aspect for us. Of course we also experience a certain tension in terms of costs, but the point is: what benefits the customer? If you integrate this principle correctly, it is our experience that you can achieve a comparable price-quality ratio as with road transport. Especially at this time it is not difficult for a shipper to choose. It opts for the greenest, sustainable solution, ie via rail. We are setting up a product with which we will soon also carry out refrigeration transport. Our ambition is to track down not only FTLs from Venlo / Kaldenkirchen, but also groupage cargo. That is why we opened a crossdock facility at the terminal itself. Groupage loading on our train is possible because we build in sufficient security and buffer. In the new timetable, for example, we deliberately leave the train at Hamburg for an hour and dwell for an hour at the border between Denmark and Sweden. The theory tells us: this is a costly waste of time, because you can no longer make up for that time and so you are less efficient with your wagon set.

Practice has taught us that the train runs more on time and therefore remains its priority with the infrastructure managers involved throughout the entire process. If you do not do that, there is a good chance that a delay of approximately 10 minutes on departure will ultimately result in a delay of approximately 6-7 hours on arrival. The easiest way is to criticize the inframanagers, but I think it is a better way to have sufficient realism as to what belongs to and anticipates the capabilities of the railway infrastructure managers. In this way, I believe there is still a lot to be gained for rail. This does mean that involved parties in the chain must be prepared to step over their own shadow. This applies to infrastructure managers when it comes to facilitating longer trains and increasing the reliability of the infrastructure. This applies to rail operators when it comes to engineering a track product from the perspective of a home-home solution. However, it is no less true for logistics service providers. Try to work together because you can’t do it alone. It is not without reason that Maersk and MSC book slots on each other’s ships. That is why our train is also open to fellow carriers. You have to share the back with each other. You have to make a difference at the front. At the same time the call: you can also immerse yourself in the track. How can rail transport contribute to making the company more sustainable and profitable? We have a responsibility for the generations to come and are therefore working enthusiastically on the transition of international freight from road to rail!