Rail instead of trucks: DPD launches parcel transport project 31/05/22

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Source: https://www.wiwo.de/unternehmen/dienstleister/logistik-schiene-statt-lkw-dpd-startet-projekt-zum-pakettransport/28386524.html

 

Rail instead of trucks: DPD launches parcel transport project

Deutsche Post DHL already increased its speed in rail transport of parcels in 2021. Now competitor DPD is also getting on the train and is now transporting by rail for the first time.

 

The market leader is concerned with completely different quantities than WITH DPD, because the Bonn-based group uses entire trains and not just a few containers. A freight train has roughly 70 containers. According to Deutsche Post, between 50 and 70 freight trains transport DHL parcels domestically on several routes every week, for example from Großbeeren near Berlin to Dortmund.

Deutsche Post DHL already picked up its rail transport pace in 2021. Over the course of the year, the share of freight train parcels in DHL's total volume rose from two to six percent. "In the future", DHL wants to reach 20 percent.According to the service provider Kombiverkehr, which brokers Deutsche Bahn freight rail capacities, the CO2 emissions of the DPD project are more than 80 percent lower when transporting a container than when transporting it by truck. The freight trains use electricity that comes not only from renewables, but also from coal production.

DPD sees the project as a further step in terms of climate protection. In delivery, the company, which is owned by the French Post Office, also uses electric vehicles in order to be responsible for as little air pollution as possible. With the freight trains, DPD is now focusing on the "main run" - i.e. the distance that is actually covered by trucks on the motorway. These trucks all still have a combustion engine, so the CO2 balance is poor on this part of the parcel route.

In view of growing parcel volumes in online retail, the entire logistics industry is looking for ways to reduce its CO2 emissions and keep traffic congestion as low as possible. Rail, which has long been spurned by the industry, is now gaining in importance as a transport route, as the DPD example shows.

After Deutsche Post DHL, competitor DPD now also sends some of its parcels by rail across Germany. The company launched a project on Tuesday night in which parcels are transported on freight trains between Hamburg and Duisburg. For the time being, the quantity transported is small, there are only two DPD containers in each of the trains, the other containers - called "swap bodies" - are from other companies. In a quarter of a year, however, DPD wants to expand the project and accept further routes. By the end of 2023, five percent of DPD's national freight traffic is to go by rail.

 

Author: dpa

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