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The Financial Times reported on 21 September that the crisis affecting European road haulage market is set to deepen next year as wages rise and driver shortages worsen. According to Luis Gomez, president of Europe at XPO Logistics, shortages could disrupt Christmas this year and new EU regulations would put further strains on retailers and producers next year.

Last week, the French government announced that it will invest €170 million per year until 2024 in the rail freight industry, in view of doubling rail freight transport by 2030. Among other measures, half of the track access charges will be subsidised, meaning that the current 50% reduction will continue to exist beyond 2021. Next to that, €70 million will be invested into isolated wagons, €47 million into the operation of combined transport services, and another €15 million into railway “motorways”.

According to a recently published report on transalpine freight transport in H1 2021 by the Swiss Federal Office for Transport (FOT), the share of rail in Transalpine freight traffic has increased to a record high following the opening of the Ceneri base tunnel and the 4-meter corridor. In the first half of 2021, it accounted for 74.4% of the volumes through the Alps, the highest value for a quarter of a century. In total, 15.2% more goods were transported through the Alps than in the first half of 2020 and also more than in the first half of 2019.

According to recent figures published by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) in the cargo chartbook for Q3 2021, industry-wide cargo tonne-kilometres (CTKs) rose by 24.9% in the three months ending in July 2021 compared to the same period in 2019. The upward trend in air cargo volumes continued in the past three months, but seasonally adjusted numbers show the growth has slowed compared to early 2021.

Amsterdam Schiphol Airport (AMS) will become the testing ground for seventeen sustainability projects resulting from TULIPS, a consortium of 29 European parties aimed at speeding up the rollout of sustainable technologies in aviation. The European Commission has awarded a grant of €25 million to the project led by Royal Schiphol Group as part of the 'Green Deal'. The projects will start in January 2022 and last until December 2025.

Ocean freight rates remained steady after 22 consecutive weeks of increases, albeit at a very high level. According to analyst Drewry, the latest release of its World Container Index (WCI) shows that freight rates remained stable this week, at $10,377.19 per forty-foot container, but is 299% higher than the same week in 2020 ($6,888 per feu).

CLECAT’s Director General Nicolette van der Jagt spoke earlier this week at the Porto Maritime Week in a panel with ECSA, FEPORT, ESC and ECASBA on the disruptions in the maritime supply chain. Noting that the overall image of container maritime supply chain is at its lowest level ever, with soaring freight rates, ongoing congestion and a huge disparity between services received and prices paid, it is in the interest of all stakeholders to ensure that the maritime supply chain becomes once again more attractive by assuring more reliable, predictable and faster services.

Transport ministers of the EU gathered on 23 September at an informal meeting in Slovenia to discuss the key aspects the proposal for a regulation on the deployment of alternative fuels infrastructure (AFIR), part of the Fit for 55 Package. Ministers agreed on the need for sufficiently ambitious and coordinated infrastructure planning in the Member States, adapted to the increased 2030 climate ambition targets.

CLECAT’s Road Logistics Institute met for the second time this month to discuss the Fit for 55 proposals on an ETS for road transport and the revision of the alternative infrastructure rules (AFIR). The European Commission aims to cut road transport emissions by 90 percent by mid-century — key to its effort to become climate neutral by 2050. But getting there means a huge increase in the number of charging points for electric vehicles, as well as developing alternatives like hydrogen.