Page 9 - Logistics News August 2016
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land transport costs
linked, you’ll be committed to a six-month This could result in dedicated freight
contract and the response will likely be corridors with trucks that run much closer
‘sorry, we can only change it in October or together (platooning), with better speeds
December’. and increased distributional flexibility at
the other end. Trucks don’t need to go to a
With road transport it’s a case of just press depot; they go straight to the destination,
a button, the truck stops, and blue bonnets unlike a train.
go down to KZN.
Like BRT, enhanced road safety will come
So even if rail is cheaper en route, from traffic segregation, in which trucks are
most people don’t use it because they’ll separated from passenger vehicles. The key
lose control of their supply chain, they’ll to realising the efficiency of this concept is
lose flexibility and they’d lose a market again through dedicated infrastructure, this
opportunity. time for road freight.
But road transport has its weaknesses At present, huge investment is going into
too; it creates a lot more damage to the road rail, with the majority of Transnet’s Market
pavement than it ever pays for. Passenger Demand Strategy (MDS) trying to win back
traffic cross-subsidises freight traffic by a what it regards as lucrative: the container
long way and it produces four to five times business. But they’re effectively having to
more harmful emissions than rail. cross-subsidise their general freight business
in order to attract people to use it and it isn’t
For road transport, mixed traffic presents very successful.
a problem; think about coming up Van
Reenen’s Pass with trucks one behind the It is only fundable because of cross-
other all trying to overtake each other subsidisation from South Africa’s very highly
and you’re in a car. There’s huge potential priced container and automotive sectors in
danger for passenger traffic. So road freight the ports, without which they couldn’t fund
transport has strengths and weaknesses; a the MDS.
sustainable road freight transport solution is
needed to maintain its strengths and mitigate But if rail investment were to focus more
its weaknesses. on the things rail is good at, Transnet could
actually increase its volume, for example, on
In the road transport sector, there’s the Durban-Gauteng corridor far more rapidly
a precedent in which a technology has and at much lower cost.
emerged that deliberately tries to achieve
this balance: Bus Rapid Transit (BRT). Revenues would be lower of course
because of bulk loads, but they could be
BRT has been marketed throughout spending one-third of what they’re doing
South Africa and it’s been partly successful. and get twice as much freight as at present,
Buses run on a track and get the benefits of leaving the higher value container freight to
dedicated infrastructure, but they can also optimised road transport infrastructure.
run off-track. They offer the best of both
worlds and the infrastructure construction Many 56-tonne interlinks already operate
costs are comparatively lower – far lower in South Africa. Some say that limit should be
than building rail infrastructure. reduced, but the only reason is because other
motorists are scared of the dangers of mega-
With BRT road safety is enhanced because trucks mixing it with buses and cars.
of the traffic segregation and higher speeds.
The key to realising the efficiency of the What if separate freight roads permitted
BRT concept is through dedicated much larger rigs with higher payloads? This
infrastructure. could reduce unit operating costs, and it
could also allow funding of that infrastructure
Truck Rapid Transit via tolls.
So what about Truck Rapid Transit (TRT)?
Isn’t it time for similar technological A dedicated freight road between Gauteng
innovation in the freight sector? This would and Durban is both fundable and could yield
create economic viability through higher a 20% reduction in land transport costs,
payloads, bigger vehicles, and better as well as other economic benefits – while
scheduling. offering other road users an element of
greater safety.•
August 2016 | Logistics News 7
