Rail Freight

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The Partnership seeks to understand the problems and issues relating to freight movement in Tyne and Wear and to set out a coherent strategy and mechanism through which they can be addressed.

A Rail Freight Partner group has been set up by the Partnership to include a number of rail industry organisations as stakeholders. The purpose of the group is to seek an understanding of opportunities for modal shift from road to rail. To help this process we have produced a short questionaire which can be completed in around 10-12 minutes.

The findings from this survey will be treated as strictly confidential if you wish. You will be asked at the end of the questionnaire how much of the detail of your answers you want to be revealed. Please be assured that we operate within the guidelines of the Market Research Society and your wishes will be respected.

This is your opportunity, as an existing or potential rail freight customer, to highlight issues that are important to you and to help shape the future of rail freight in and around the region.

If you have any questions, or would like to discuss either the questionnaire or issues that it raises, please contact Mike at AECOM, in the first instance, on   michael.page@aecom.com or 0191 224 6512

Download the 2010 rail freight review report here

Introduction

This section provides details of the work the Partnership has been doing to encourage rail freight usage in Tyne and Wear and contains useful tools for transport operators to make decisions regarding modal choice.

  • The about section details the purpose of the rail freight partner group and provides information about meetingsChoosing and Developing a Multi-modal Transport Solution held by the group.
  • The Multimodal Map allows transport operators considering modal switch to view details of open rail terminals, rail connected ports, sea ports and river ports and their various handling capabilities. The map also allows users to plot journeys to and from a specific origin to a specific destination and the map will plot routes via rail, road or sea and provide details including cost, time and CO2 emissions to which option would be the most effective method of transporting their goods
  • The minutes page provides the minutes of the past Rail Freight Partner group meetings
  • The contacts page provides details of Rail freight providers and their contact details
  • There is also a link to the Department for Transport’s guide 'Choosing and Developing a Multi-modal Transport Solution'.

About the Partner Group

A key task of the Partnership was to explore opportunities to improve the use of rail freight and identify areas for infrastructural regeneration, upgrade or construction. This all works towards meeting the over-arching sustainable modes of transport aims set out in DaSTS and as result the LTP3.

In 2009 the Partnership developed the ‘Rail Freight Review’ and based upon conclusions and recommendations from this report the Partnership successfully brought together rail industry organisations to plan a way forward to increase opportunities for use of rail freight in the North East, more specifically Tyne and Wear

In 2010 a Workshop consisting of select organisations was held. Participants included:

  • Network Rail,
  • The Rail Freight Group,
  • Freight Transport Association,
  • Port of Tyne,
  • Sunderland City Council,
  • North East Combined Transport Activists Roundtable,
  • Rail Future NE,
  • Oxford Rail Strategy
  • Tyne and Wear LTP Team

This Workshop defined an action plan for a future Partner Group (Made up of key decision makers and those that could influence the road and rail industry) to begin to discuss methods as to how secure funding to aid modal shift and how to aid operators in making key decisions relating to modal shift. A successful Partner Group meeting was held on the 28/03/11 with organisations from all disciplines of the Rail industry attending. The group was 20 strong which is testament to the interest the Partnership has generated. A further Rail Freight further meeting is now planned for September 2011 and it is hoped that the number of interested parties attending will have grown.

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