Away from bulk, the largest sector is intermodal, which today makes up a further third of all traffic.
This is actually two distinct markets. First (and by far the largest) is the movement of deep sea shipping containers from port to terminal, dominated by the large flows from Southampton, Felixstowe and London to inland destinations across the UK.
These ports dominate because the global shipping lines such as Maersk, using the world’s largest container ships, tend to only make a single UK call on routes between the Far East and Americas to mainland Europe, and do not want to sail far from the shipping lanes taking them on to ports such as Rotterdam.
Of course, other ports do handle containerised goods, including traffic coming on feeder vessels and other short sea trades. The Port of Liverpool is presently investing to enable ‘new post panamax’-size vessels to call there, while several of the East Coast ports also handle container flows.
But for rail the combination of volume and destination has (at least to date) made this difficult business from the regional ports, although all eyes are on Liverpool at present.
On the main flows, however, intermodal volumes have soared - up 75% in the decade to 2012. There is little doubt that work to ‘gauge clear’ the network, allowing 9ft 6in standard containers to be conveyed, has made a big difference.
Increased efficiency and competition in the market has also caused costs to fall, making rail more able to compete with road. We expect these trends to continue, and there is certainly significant potential for rail to increase its market share in this sector.
The second part of the intermodal market, so-called domestic intermodal, is the movement of goods for the retail sector within the UK mainland. This is still a small market on rail, but one where there is huge potential for growth.
Retailers rely on a series of national and regional distribution centres, from where they supply their store networks and ecommerce businesses.
Some, such as Tesco, are finding that they can use rail on the trunk flows between these centres, and in some cases even direct to store.
