Rail freight delivers £1.7bn benefits
RAIL freight delivers economic benefits to the UK of more than £1.7 billion per year, according to a new report published by the Rail Delivery Group on June 7. Rail Freight Working for Britain claims that rail freight provides almost £1.2bn of productivity gains for businesses choosing to use it over road haulage, and more than £0.5bn of external benefits such as reduced road congestion, better air quality, lower carbon dioxide emissions and fewer road accidents.
The report claims that one in four containers entering and exiting the UK via deep-sea ports travels by rail, and that one freight train can carry enough material to build 30 houses.
Since privatisation in 1997, freight operators have invested £2.8bn on locomotives, wagons and other equipment to improve productivity, while ports and other rail freight users have also spent heavily. The Government has provided around £700 million of funding on the rail freight network to cut loading gauge and train length restrictions. The report says investments through the Strategic Freight Network have delivered schemes with benefit:cost ratios of between 4:1 and 8:1.
Freight trains are carrying goods worth an estimated £30bn further, with indexed net tonne-km per freight train rising from 100 in 2003-04 to almost 180 in 2016-17. Much of the activity is accounted for by Yorkshire and Humber, the North West, Scotland and the Midlands, but even in the east of England total benefits per year are estimated at £74m per annum.
Road congestion is also being reduced by rail freight, with an estimated 7.79 million HGV journeys saved per year, and 1.66 billion fewer HGV kilometres travelled. There are also environmental benefits from rail freight, with every tonne transported by rail estimated to have carbon emissions of around 76% lower than road haulage. Furthermore, average delays per mile are five seconds for rail freight, compared with nine on the strategic road network, and almost 50 on local A-roads.
“This work by the Rail Delivery Group highlights the very significant benefits that rail freight is providing to the UK each year, at over £60 for each and every household,” said Rail Freight Group Executive Director Maggie Simpson.
“Working together, the rail freight industry and its customers are continuing to invest and develop new services to further increase these benefits.
“Over the coming year we are expecting to see renewed growth
in intermodal, with new terminals opening such as iPort at Doncaster, and services starting from Port of Liverpool and elsewhere.”