Global Logistics and Supply Chain Strategies - May 2008 - (Page 57)

INDUSTRY VOICES trains out of Bremerhaven and Hamburg. That is 2,000 units per week or 15,000 highspeed connections per year to various hinterland terminals in the economic centers of Germany, Austria, Switzerland, eastern France and, soon, Hungary. Delivery to points throughout this network is within 12 to 36 hours. Each day 20 feeder trains move containers from the two ports to a mid-point hub location. Beyond this hub, we run 320 trains per week, which is double what it was just a few years ago. There are three daily trains to major German cities such as Munich, Stuttgart and Leipzig. There are services six times a week to Austrian terminals in Vienna, Salzburg and Linz. Overnight service to Switzerland is to terminals in Basel, Zurich and Rekingen. companies operating or planning plants somewhere in the region. While it is questionable about how much real auto demand there is going to be in this region, the industry is developing significant imports and exports. We now have an agency office in Detroit because of the automotive business. Q: Green logistics is a buzzword, today, especially in Europe. How does this trend impact TFG’s AlbatrosExpress service and its competitiveness? Oswald: Very well. Environmental concerns have become one of our most important selling points. Fuel consumption and CO2 emissions from our AlbatrosExpress trains are 4.5 times less than truck transport. It is even more environmentally friendly than barge in terms of CO2. We have shifted 600,000 road trips per year to rail, which has saved 360,000 tons of CO2 from going into the environment. Q: Does TFG handle nearly all the rail intermodal traffic in and out of Bremerhaven and Hamburg? Oswald: No, we certainly do not handle all the intermodal traffic. More than 10 million containers moved through Hamburg alone last year, and this number will double in the next 10 years. TFG has about 50 percent of the rail movement of containers in and out of these ports, but the other half is shared by a long list of competitors. Our competition is really all of the inland services from all the European ports, including truck and barge as well as rail. Services in and out of Rotterdam are our largest competitors, but most of the services go by barge up the Rhine. Rotterdam has a new rail service into Germany connecting at Duisburg, but it has not yet made a huge impact. Less than five percent of the port traffic goes by rail. LeHarve is becoming more competitive to us and will be expanding with another 4 million-TEU terminal in the near future. The competition in Western Europe is no longer between the major ports because they all are operating at near capacity. The competition is between the services that move the traffic into the hinterland of Europe. Because trackage rights can be obtained on many national rail systems, there are many intermodal competitors. A few large shippers are even looking at running their own trains. Mittal Steel is doing this now. IKEA did this at one time as well. As you can see, the market is very competitive. Q: Who are TFG’s major customers? Oswald: We work with virtually all the major forwarders and many small ones as well. We also deal directly with a number of major shippers, including Mercedes, IKEA, Karstadt, Red Bull and many others. Q: How about POLZUG? What is the scope of its services? Schulze-Freyberg: POLZUG runs several container trains per day from Hamburg to Poland, Lithuania and Ukraine and four trains per week from Bremerhaven and Rotterdam. It provides on-carriage rail to Russia, Moldova, the Caucasus, Central Asia, Mongolia and Afghanistan. Within Poland, it runs between the major Polish seaports and inland terminals. POLZUG’s inland depots provide storage of containers, swap-bodies and trailers. It also provides plug-in capability for reefers and delivery of dangerous goods by licensed truckers. From these depots, POLZUG connects with terminals in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Q: It sounds like Poland has become a key transport hub for the East. Why is that? Q: You mentioned that IT was a key element in TFG’s business. How so? Oswald: In many ways, TFG is an IT company. We have only 170 employees and the majority of them are some way involved with customer service, most of which is electronic. We have long had an online reservation center that also provides comprehensive tracking from any location. Probably 90 percent of our bookings have been electronic for some time via EDI. Earlier this year, TFG launched its new Dispo Center, so customers can book shipments with an easily accessible tool via the internet. It is a web-based system that requires no extra in-house software by the users. The average booking takes about two and half minutes. Users can even book freight at the last minute, and many do to obtain discount pricing if any space is available. Most reservations are made online well in advance, as long as three months in advance. The online tool offers an overview of the status of both container reservations and regular transports around the clock. Customers can access immediate information concerning reservations requiring order data or location of containers. To access this article online, visit The Digital Edition at www.SupplyChainBrain.com. Schulze-Freyberg: Poland is the rail turntable of Europe today connecting Western Europe with Baltic states, Russia and all the CIS countries. Rail service is the most important freight mode because highways are not nearly as well developed as they are in the West. In fact, Russia has no modern highway system to speak of, so rail is the future for economic development in this entire region. Also, Poland’s economy is advancing around industries that are rail-oriented. Automotive, furniture, machinery, ship-building and chemicals are all growing rapidly. For example, IKEA now makes all of its furniture in Poland. Automotive has become important, not just in Poland, but throughout Eastern Europe with all of the major automotive Q: How about trucking? Is TFG’s intermodal service competitive with trucking? Oswald: Competition is largely a matter of length of haul and service quality to specific points. Truck handles everything within a hundred or so kilometers of the ports, and it is very competitive to other nearby cities such as Berlin where only about 20 percent of the containers go by rail. To inland cities such as Munich, however, 95 percent of the containers move by rail. Truck should be for the [destinations] very close by, not for most container traffic. Resource Link Transfracht (TFG), www.transfracht.de POLZUG Intermodal, www.polzug.de www.supplychainbrain.com GLOBAL LOGISTICS & SUPPLY CHAIN STRATEGIES 57 http://www.SupplyChainBrain.com http://www.transfracht.de http://www.polzug.de http://www.supplychainbrain.com

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Global Logistics and Supply Chain Strategies - May 2008

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