An Industry Analysis of Express Freight from a European Railway Perspective

Journal article, 2003

There are large differences in both speed and costs between the traffic modes road and air. Rail has not yet successfully offered services faster than road but cheaper than air, al-though there are technical, logistical and economical opportunities for competing with air for intra-continental shipments and co-operate for intercontinental ones. The article categorises segments of the European express freight market and analyses them in a rail perspective. Services between Sweden and Continental Europe and domestically in Sweden are focused. System modelling tools are also adapted to the application of express intermodal transport and prospective roles for rail in express transport are defined. The analysis shows that a transport chain with many actors and long distances does not necessarily entail longer transport times than a short-distance ditto under a single manage-ment. The analysis also show that many express transport systems are built in a modular way, implying that subsystems can be exchanged.