A quiet revolution has been taking place in the distribution market, with shippers continuing to increase their use of intermodal services provided by the freight operating companies.
Port investment has taken place to provide greater rail loading capacity and it is a similar story with inland distribution centres, where both new and previously available facilities have enhanced handling facilities to cater for a greater volume of traffic.
This is a response to changing market conditions, as more containers are delivered to distribution centres rather than end users, in part as a result of retail customers moving from the high street to online shopping.
Rail freight statistics are collated by the Office of Rail and Road and published on a quarterly basis. The calculation that best reflects traffic activity is the use of the net tonne kilometres metric which combines tonnes conveyed and the distance covered by the haul. It is well suited to intermodal flows, which cover long distances
