Truck and Track Autumn 2026 www.truckandtrack.com 52 INTERMODAL TRANSPORT SOFTWARE In September the government set Great British Railways two freight targets. The first milestone is at least 40% growth by 2040. The long-term ambition is 75% by 2050. The industry’s reply was quick and fair: the challenge is delivery. Is this achievable? Yes, both targets are achievable, though neither is inevitable. Meeting them will take more paths, a reliable network, terminal capacity and competitive costs, and every one of those remains essential. It will also take something that gets far less attention: coordination between the companies that move each container. Capacity and coordination have to grow together. Trains visit rail yards The cargo is needed at warehouses, distribution centres and factories, and the last stretch to those will always involve a truck. So every container that travels by rail passes through several organisations. A shipping line’s booking becomes a terminal’s gate move, then a rail operator’s wagon plan, then a haulier’s job sheet. Growth adds more of those handovers, and more short, timecritical road legs at either end. If rail capacity grows and the coordination around it doesn’t keep pace, the customer feels it. With so much running just in time, a small delay at one handover can have big consequences further down the line. The manual way of managing handovers also stops scaling at some point. As Julie Garn, Intermodal Director at GB Railfreight, puts it: “We couldn’t keep adding people every time we wanted to run a new train.” Price gets rail considered Road is getting more expensive. Since the conflict with Iran began in February, UK diesel has gone from 142.4p a litre to a record £2 a litre, according to the RAC. That’s a rise of around 40%, and it will lead more customers to look at rail. Price may get rail considered. Dependable service is what earns repeat business. Customers need confidence in the whole delivery from port to door, and the train journey is only one part of it. Chris Lawrenson, CEO of Freightliner, made a related point at the RFG Spring Group Meeting and BBQ this summer. He argued that booking a combined rail and road move should be as easy as booking a road delivery, and that rail pricing needs to be simple enough for customers to know what they’ll pay. We agree. Where to start The first thing we’d tell a peer is to take one important customer route and walk it from port to door with the partners involved. Find where information gets re-entered, where people have to chase, and where changes fail to reach the next party. Then: 1. Keep everyone working from the same current plan. Trucks and trains do different jobs, and the road leg is part of the rail product. Agree what information each partner needs and when. They don’t necessarily need the same software, but a changed train plan must reach the terminal and the haulier in time for them to act. Hauliers should be able to plan collections against real train times rather than the timetable. 2. Be clear who acts when something changes. Who replans the movement, changes the collection and tells the customer? Seeing a problem is not the same as resolving it. You need to move beyond visibility so you have the information to make decisions based on network intelligence and clear responsibilities. 3. Measure the whole delivery. Most operators track train punctuality. Far fewer track whether the customer’s slot was met, how long vehicles waited, which connections were missed and how much manual chasing it took. Look at how long a box waits between organisations, and at the cost of completing the job as well as the efficiency of each leg. At Southampton, Solent Stevedores cut peak waiting times for hauliers from four hours to 30 minutes once collections were booked in advance. 4. Make rail as easy to buy as road. One booking and one clear price for the whole journey, rail and road together. If customers have to work harder to use rail, most of them won’t. Who will be ready The operators ready for growth will be those that can move more freight without multiplying the chasing, waiting and rework between partners. And you’ll know they are the winners in this challenge, because their customers never have to ask where their box is. Darren Palfrey is CEO and Jim Slade is Commercial Director at Fargo, intermodal’s operating system. Fargo connects the rail operators, terminals and hauliers that move freight across the UK and Europe. It brings more than 20 years of network experience to helping every partner work from the same plan and deliver with certainty. www.thefargogroup.com The Growth Nobody Planned For By Darren Palfrey, CEO, and Jim Slade, Commercial Director, Fargo Darren Palfrey, Fargo Group CEO Jim Slade, Fargo Group Commercial Director
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