Freight data and why it matters.

Yesterday I attended the TDI event on Freight data in Liverpool. It was a great event. As someone who has to travel a lot, it’s rare to be impressed by a place, but even through the rain and cold, Liverpool was truly awesome. We were fortunate that the event coincided with the maiden voyage of Virgin Voyages’ Scarlet Lady from Liverpool to New York https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/whats-on/whats-on-news/virgin-cruise-ship-scarlet-lady-17808849 . This really brought to life our island’s connection with the sea and set the scene for some great discussions around ports, freight exports and of course, freight data. The UK’s freight system moves 1.6bn tonnes of goods annually, with significant activities across air, road, rail and water so it’s essential that we understand how we can support freight movement, while ensuring that we can also meet environmental objectives.

There were some great talks, and like most of these topics, different stakeholders coming to the problem of freight data from lots of different perspectives. As with all datasets, it’s important always to clearly define the questions we want to answer so that we know we’re identifying and collecting data in the right way. From the discussion, it felt as though there are a range of different questions that we need freight data for. I think it’s worth discussing each of these points to understand what the problem is, how improved freight data might help and what type of data is going to be most relevant in each case.

1)     Decarbonisation: Decarbonisation is driving significant new interest in freight patterns. Freight is widely stated as accounting for ~25% of transport carbon emissions and, with over 322 Local Authorities having declared a climate emergency, thinking about freight is becoming increasingly important. But the data to support the transition to zero carbon is patchy at best. Firstly, freight activity exists to support a range of objectives – as a result freight moves through local authorities for a wide number of end uses. In some cases, this directly supports economic growth and routes to markets for the local authority itself; in other cases freight passes through the region, from or to an onward destination in the rest of the UK. In other cases still, freight provides an essential service delivering goods to residents, meaning that they don’t need to make as many car trips themselves. Disaggregating those different purposes (and more that I’m sure to have missed) and understanding how one influences another is currently a significant gap. These trips are also currently provided across a wide range of modes and vehicles. While we have some visibility around the current mode share, there is very limited data about the potential capacities or routes that could be enabled by different modes. This means that local authorities have limited information to understand the potential for modal shift, its potential impact locally and more widely, and, how all of this could feed into evidence for freight-related policies.

In addition, we need new data specifically to enable freight to decarbonise. Dr Hew Davis from Coventry University gave an overview of the IEA’s Hybrid Electric Vehicle Technology Collaboration Programme and the challenges inherent in decarbonising freight vehicles. It goes without saying that the charging needs of N3 vehicles (the largest category of HGVs) are considerably different to those of passenger cars. The majority of current approaches require vehicles to ‘return to depot’ to recharge. The infrastructure needs for freight is therefore a major gap – who is rolling out the supercharging network for N3 vehicles for example? What does this charging infrastructure even look like? From a data perspective, greater understanding of freight patterns is going to be needed to ensure that the right charging infrastructure is deployed in the right places to support global supply chains. And beyond that, the data of where this infrastructure is, needs to be openly available to logistics operators planning routes. It feels like we’re some way away from having clear answers to those challenges as an industry.

2)     Economic Growth: Freight movements naturally extend well beyond the boundaries of local authorities, combined authorities or STBs. This presents another major challenge. One of the key goals of transport investment is to stimulate economic growth. Clearly one of the key ways that transport enables this is in providing routes to market to existing and new customers. There are a complex series of business decisions that result in where to locate distribution hubs driven by land availability, distribution costs (including taxes), and the time-to-market needs of other players in the supply chain. Our current thinking in this regard is rather simplistic. Consider WebTAG, it simply states we might want to double the value of time for HGV drivers to try and capture more of the benefits of re-routing. But this misses lots of the nuances in how freight distribution and economics work in reality. For example, we have a system that has grown up around road freight (78% of goods are currently moved by roads). Since roads are easy to access, the majority of distribution centres can be seen to be located along key motorways. Like many of our existing appraisal methods, this creates a chicken and egg issue where existing patterns of behaviour bias the analysis, rather than considering what might happen with an alternative solution somewhere else. Surely, in light of the climate emergency, we need to be asking why only 9% of freight is transported by rail, (for example, how much capacity is there on the railway at night?) and how we can develop investments to address that? Consider in addition, that we are spending considerable sums of money rolling out rural broadband to enable greater connectivity with global markets while at the same time doing nothing to help new industries reach new customers in a sustainable way. 

Overall, greater understanding of the end destinations for freight movements, how industry evaluates their own investments and how long-term land-use feeds into our models is surely essential to help us understand how to support greater economic growth, while considering the sustainability of freight movements across a wider range of modes.

3)     Accessibility: The question of the extent to which HGVs and vans are contributing to worsening traffic congestion in busy towns and cities driven by changing purchasing habits was a hot topic on the agenda. For example, TfL reports that kilometres travelled by freight and servicing vehicles in London have increased by

approximately 39 per cent over the last 25 years driven by a significant increase in LGVs with impacts on congestion, air quality and safety. There was widespread agreement that freight needed to form a much greater part of local planning, while many also acknowledged that these movements, in particular the impacts of changing purchasing habits, are currently somewhat invisible to policy-makers and planners. It was also acknowledged that the ‘last mile’ of deliveries is complex and, accounting for 30% of operational costs, could be an area for greater consolidation and efficiency. Many noted, this should be an area where suppliers are willing to share data to unlock benefits, but commercial considerations continue to act as a barrier.

Given changes to freight patterns, it is clear that local freight now supports access to goods in a way that might traditionally have been played by the high street, or out-of-town shopping centres. However, to many it is unclear what the net effect of this change is – to what extent is a reduction in personal trips offsetting an increase in deliveries, if at all? This raises lots of questions and ideas – for example, one participant proposed a idea for Freight-as-a-Service as a potential innovative response. However, without data, any of the policy or innovative new business models become impossible to simulate or validate.

The level of agreement, that freight needs to be a key consideration in planning, was comforting. But to deliver this, we clearly need a much greater level of understanding and data across all of these areas.

4)     Traffic Management & Enforcement: The final two areas of focus were traffic management and enforcement. These seems like areas where we currently have the best data, albeit with some considerable challenges. The lack of standardisation within TROs, and subsequent difficulties communicating diversionary routes or enforcements to drivers were strong themes. This is a slightly different problem – in these areas the data seems to exist, but often in different formats creating considerable barriers to its use. Solutions to manage data related to the ‘kerbside’ are clearly welcome, but without standards and consistent processes within local authorities, interoperability issues may result. Many were excited about the opportunities and efficiencies that could be enabled but it will also be essential to ensure clear links between operations and the data available for development of strategy (where the biggest gaps appear to exist).

Finally, one of the most interesting debates came in relation to road pricing with many acknowledging that this presents both challenges and opportunities. Most participants, reluctantly acknowledged that it would likely have to come as a result of falling fuel duty as we electrify. But many also identified potential opportunities this could bring – for example, providing a flexible mechanism to manage demand (e.g. in relation to time of day, mode choice and even more dynamically). Traffic management and enforcement technologies already provide the data capture techniques to help enable new approaches but lots of work will need to be done understanding the economics and outcomes; roles and responsibilities; and winners and losers in any future road pricing regime. For that we’ll most certainly need data. With all these challenges and opportunities, it really is essential we find ways to get much better data and improve our freight modelling approaches asap.