The findings of the latest annual study by the Association des Utilisateurs de Transport de Fret (AUTF) on how French shippers view the service offerings of the rail freight and combined transport sectors confirm an improvement in the general level of satisfaction but one which remains “very inadequate.”
Based on feedback collected last year from a sample panel, the Baromètrede Perception 2024 also reveals shippers’ high expectations in terms of innovation, particularly for the pooling of freight.
One key takeaway from the study is that freight forwarders seem to be playing a greater role in organising conventional and combined rail transport flows for shippers across all product verticals.
While 54 per cent of the sample respondents (-4 percentage points versus 2022) said they were in direct contact with rail companies – mainly shippers of agricultural products, aggregates and construction materials – forwarders were the second preferred point of contact (39 per cent). With regard to combined rail/road transport, this figure rose to 43 per cent, of which more than one-third are from the consumer goods sector.
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Offerings hardly meet shippers’ needs
Confirming the positive trend recorded in recent years, the survey also revealed that 59 per cent of the shippers in the sample consider the organisation of rail freight to be clear and intelligible, with 41 per cent having the contrary view. However, regardless of whether the mode is conventional or combined, only around one-third of respondents believe service offerings meet their needs.
This highly contrasts the level of satisfaction among shippers for road freight which reached an impressive 88 per cent. Satisfaction with conventional rail freight transport remains at a mediocre level (36 per cent) but is up significantly in 2022 (17 per cent).
However, 59 per cent of respondents – mainly shippers of hazardous products and chemicals and aggregates and building materials – considered their satisfaction to be down slightly. Eleven per cent of respondents said they were “not at all satisfied”, up by 10 percentage points compared to 2022.
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Combined transport not a top prefference
Combined road/rail transport also received a mixed reaction, with only 32 per cent of respondents satisfied (down 11 points). However, respondents highlighted a much better match between supply and demand for combined transport in 2023 than in the previous year.
Unlike last year’s Baromètre de Perception, in which combined rail/road transport topped the list of modes expected to see strong growth, in this year’s edition, it falls to fifth place behind river, short sea, river/road, and road transport.
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Shift to road
Strikes undoubtedly impacted satisfaction levels last year, with 56 per cent of respondents describing the impact of industrial action as “strong”. The strikes, as well as the hike in energy costs, had an impact on most shippers, unaccustomed to changes in electricity prices.
More than a third of shippers of consumer goods (32 per cent) and around two-thirds of aggregates and construction materials shippers (62 per cent) reported a strong impact from more expensive energy. Most have been led to switch back to the road on a one-off basis, but a third of respondents have made permanent choices to reverse modal shift.
Innovation key to keep shippers onboard
As for the outlook, when it comes to innovation, shippers’ strongest expectations concern the pooling of rail freight. However, only 27 per cent of respondents said such an option had been offered to them, while 48 per cent were expecting alternatives in this area. Notably, environmental innovation was cited by 45 per cent of shippers in the sample panel, more than double the 22 per cent of 2022.
In the future, shippers will be particularly sensitive to innovations that facilitate information provision and reduce environmental impact. The study noted that low-carbon energy locomotive power is a service most awaited by shippers.
The AUTF concluded: “Overall, rail freight is perceived as having less development potential than river transport which is notoriously underutilised. Other factors such as labour unrest and concerns about the future of the rail freight landscape, following the reorganization of Fret SNCF activities, may also explain these results.”