Overview
Freight transport will increase significantly within the next few years in Germany. This will lead to capacity shortages especially on the road. Despite investments in the infrastructure, the road infrastructure will not be able to handle the increase in transport. An official goal of the transport policy is consequently using rail and waterways to a higher extent.
The main objective of this project is to change logistic processes of the large goods forwarder Tchibo, so that especially the rail is used to a higher extent. It is also aimed at illustrating that under certain conditions combined traffic for rather short distances is feasible. Tchibo´s non-food branch grew disproportionately in the last years. This growth demands for a reconceptualisation of its so far, rather decentralised organised logistic processes. 60% of its shipping is intended to be transferred to either rail or waterway.
Because of different requirements, the access traffic from the ports to the logistics centre at Neustädter Hafen, as well as the onwards carriage to the different inland supply centers are currently done by truck. Besides the possibilities of shifts of transports to block trains exclusively operated by Tchibo, also the opening of capacity on Tchibo trains to third parties is examined. In the course of this project it is worked towards putting an economic overall concept into practice. The commercial viability is a precondition for continuing the utilization of the developed concept also after the end of the project.
Funding
Results
The overall transport performance of the Tchibo non-food transports amounts to 14.5 million container kilometres per annum. So far, 8.8 million (60.4%) could be shifted from the road to rail and partially to inland ships. There are further potentials for optimization after the logistics centre Neustädter Hafen´s begin of operations in summer 2006. It is assumed that further 2.6 million container kilometres (18%) can be shifted. Overall, this would mean that 80% of all Tchibo transports could be shifted from the road to more environmentally-friendly modes of transport.
The surveys of businesses in the framework of this project additionally showed that the shippers in the target areas have a clear interest in combined traffic. This would mean that in the regions Gernsheim and Neumarkt there are more potentials for shifts of transport in the future.
Findings of the study are published in detail by a final report (German only) which is available online via https://www.tib.eu/suchen/id/TIBKAT%3A513665188/Entwicklung-eines-schienenorientierten-Logistik/?tx_tibsearch_search%5Bsearchspace%5D=tn