A multimodal incentive has earned multinational port operator DP World two accolades from the UK rail freight industry. The Dubai headquartered operation has been named Business of the Year by the Rail Freight Group (RFG), the representative body for the sector. The operator also picked up a second award for Driving Rail Freight Growth.
DP World has interests in around 80 ports worldwide, from Nanaimo, British Columbia, to Sydney, New South Wales. However, it has been a modal shift project from road to rail at the Port of Southampton that has captured the imagination of industry in the UK. It has successfully encouraged freight haulage clients to switch from road to rail, and that has brought the company a slew of recognition, now including a brace of awards from the members of the RFG.
Significant investment
The motives behind the DP World Southampton modal shift programme may not have been directed at the attention of the Rail Freight Group, but that has certainly been an outcome of the programme. “Our ‘Modal Shift Programme’ increases the attractiveness of intermodal rail for customers through the use of financial incentives,” said Ernst Schulze, the company’s UK Chief Executive.
Customers at the port have been offered a financial incentive to use rail freight, aimed at journeys of less than one hundred and forty miles (225km). Intermodal trains from Southampton serve rail terminals within that cordon at places like Cardiff, Birmingham and DP World’s own London Gateway. According to figures from the RFG, the share of freight units being moved by rail from the port of Southampton in the first six months of the project increased by two thirds.
Net zero logistics organisation
The modal shift programme has been the highest profile part of a concerted campaign by DP World. Both of its UK ports are now diesel-free following an operational switch to HVO (hydrotreated vegetable oil). For the new fourth berth at DP World London Gateway claims to operate the world’s first all-electric berth, after taking delivery of eight Kalmar electric straddle carriers.
DP World has been the recipient of a string of awards already this year. For their work at Southampton, the company had already picked up Port of the Year and Sustainable Business of the Year at separate industry events. “Our ambition is to become the most sustainable logistics business in the UK,” said Schulze. “We will mitigate the impacts of climate change by becoming a net zero logistics organisation by 2050 and continue to do everything we can to help customers on their own decarbonisation journeys.”