Development of ‘Less than Wagon Load’ transport solutions in the Antwerp Chemical cluster

Project Information

LessThanWagonLoad

Grant agreement ID: 723274

DOI

10.3030/723274

Project closed

EC signature date 4 April 2017

Start date 1 May 2017

End date 30 April 2020

Funded under

• SOCIETAL CHALLENGES - Smart, Green And Integrated Transport

Total cost

€ 3 994 318,75

EU contribution

€ 3 994 318,75

Coordinated by

LINEAS GROUP
Belgium

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - LessThanWagonLoad (Development of ‘Less than Wagon Load’ transport solutions in the Antwerp Chemical cluster)

Reporting period: 2018-11-01 to 2020-04-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The LessThanWagonLoad project has the objective to develop a smart specialized logistics cluster for the chemical industry in the Port of Antwerp in order to shift transport volumes from road to rail freight.

This objective will be realised by developing: (i) a new rail transport solutions for single pallets (we call this LWL ‘less than wagon load’ in analogy with existing LTL ‘less than truck load’ transport) and (ii) new added value rail freight services for the industry within the Antwerp chemical cluster. These potential new services consist of parking, repair, picking and cleaning for chemical wagons, rail connected cross docking of pallets and improved rail connections by setting up mixed trains with conventional and maritime container volumes. Realising the LessThanWagonLoad project will contribute in a substantial way in realizing the EC’s ambition to shift 30% of road freight over 300km to low-emission modes by 2030. The potential benefits of the project for European society are very important and diverse: (i) environmental improvements (less GHG emissions), (ii) reduced costs of rail freight, (iii) increased inter-modality and higher resilience of the transport system, (iv) local economic growth and employment, (v) less congestion and traffic casualties and (vi) less risk on social dumping.

To the best of our knowledge no real LWL concept exists on rail. Due to higher operational costs this concept was never feasible nor competitive with the truck. To tackle this issue the consortium will develop an automated loading system to limit the handling costs of these pallets and at the same time search for viable destinations and partners at the other end of the stretch.

The project primarily focuses on Antwerp and the chemical industry. As major logistical hub in Europe, it is strategically positioned and connected to 3 of the 9 TEN-T freight corridors. With presence of 11 of the 15 largest chemical companies in the world, Antwerp is the largest chemical cluster in Europe. Despite the fact that Antwerp is well connected with low-emission transport networks such as inland waterways and rail, most transport of intermediate or finished chemical products is still done by truck, leading to important CO2 emissions, air pollution and road congestion in and around Antwerp. Nevertheless the focus lies on the Antwerp cluster, the new concepts can also be leveraged to other logistical hubs with other industries. This will be demonstrated at a second logistical hub Nola, in the south of Italy. This broad implementation potential increases the impact on European society.

The consortium partners are highly ambitious in developing ground-breaking concepts (e.g. LWL), but also in developing new technology (e.g. automated loading of wagons) and in working out collaborative business models to bundle volumes and maximise equipment utilisation within the cluster. The consortium consists of 11 partners, from 5 member states. It has been carefully set up to combine the necessary multidisciplinary competences to realise the objectives. There is a balanced mix between research institutes, technology suppliers, freight operators and the chemical industry.

The consortium is highly motivated to achieve the modal shift by working out rail products and services for the industry that outperform other transport solutions. It would be an honour for the consortium to start this exciting project with full support of the European Commission.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

WP1 deals with defining the LwL concept. The major conclusions are:

In WP2 and 3 we actually built and tested at full capacity the Automatic Wagon Loading system:

WP4, 5 and 6 elaborated on developing WAS for the mainhub in Antwerp:
- There is a technical and objective need for a truck parking in the Antwerp-North area.
- The need and technical specifications for a parking for chemical wagons can be identified.
- The need analysis for specialised repair services is a much more positive story.
- We identified that the port of Antwerp has a need for extra advanced tank wagon cleaning facilities.

WP7 developed the requirements for the mainhub to have sufficient volumes.
- Regions with the largest cargo flows are predominantly found on relative short distances (e.g. North France, Western part of Germany and The Netherlands).
- The rail cost analysis has shown that the bundling of volumes enables significant cost savings in the long haul (LH) train costs.
- The impact of the mixed cargo train concept on the door-to-door cost performance will be larger for conventional rail transport than intermodal rail transport.
- For intermodal cargo the relative cost advantage of mixed trains increases at greater rail distances and with decreasing trainload sizes.
- As conventional cargo is concerned, the mixed train concept has no implications for the operations with conventional wagons.
- The results of the benchmark with road transport show that in general the mixed cargo train service leads to a favorable cost competitiveness of rail transport compared to road transport for all five hinterland destinations.

In WP8 the developed VAS services were brought a level higher in detail into concrete business cases

In WP9 the transferability to other logistics hub was analysed i.e. the project looked at the potential of NOLA near Naples which was evaluated positively

WP10 analysed the potential of the project by consulting che chemical cluster in Antwerp

The environmental impact of the changes in set-up was analysed in the last operational work package
- It means that LWL could shift 1.66 billion ton.km of road freight to rail freight, around 15% of the truck freight;
- For GHG emission, LwL could shift 2.42 billion ton.km of road freight to rail freight, around 21% of the truck freight.
- Overall, for 2030, the LWL solution allows a decline around 10% of the road traffic.

On the dissemination the following has been achieved:
A large number of stakeholders was addressed:

Also several media and tools were used:

I was foreseen to demonstrate the AWLS on 3 different fairs:

On the level of exploitation a number of the reports out of the deliverables are available for consultation on the website and will or are presented on different public seminars and meetings. The confidential reports are available under the consortium partners for further exploitation.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The developed solutions for Less Than Wagon Load transport challenges via an Automated Wagon Loading System do not exist in the market yet. They will provide a major step forward in making rail for this type of cargo significantly more price competitive than in current business practices. As the cost difference is still a major deciding factor on modal choice, this newly developed AWLS will contribute in driving modal shift. The consortium is confident that it will deliver a ready for roll-out system.

The combination of activities offered at the Mainhub will be unique in its kind. Nowhere in Europe has a similar set-up been developed. It is the combination of activities which is the main contributor to its attractiveness. At a later stage, the Mainhub set-up could be copied to other load transfer terminals. They will make the European freight transport network more solid and by far more ecological.

The research that analyzed in depth the potential for modal shift delivered a methodology which has not been used before. The same methodology could be applied for other research.

View of the Automatic Wagon Loading system in demonstration mode as built

Drawing of the new cleaning facility at Antwerp Mainhub as part fo the integrated service offering