Essex headquartered freight forwarding outfit the Woodland Group has a twenty-year pedigree when it comes to serving the supply chain needs of the book trade, principally under its former persona as Bookbridge, and the company continues to export more magazines from the UK than any other logistics company.
Freight trains, carrying critical business supplies into major cities in the UK, may start rolling again for the first time in over 20 years, following a test train from Rugby to London's Euston Station on June 5, which the operator claims delivers a faster service, and potentially saves thousands of tonnes of carbon emissions compared to that of road haulage.
In a recent decision affecting ocean freight operators, the International Maritime Organization's Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC) adopted amendments to the MARPOL Convention to set a date for the implementation of "Tier III" standards within emission control areas (ECAs) and to make the IMO Member State Audit Scheme mandatory.
Global forwarding group DB Schenker says it has taken a fresh look at the modes of transport usually chosen for moving freight around Asia and switched to a more efficient multimodal option which it has christened the "Asia Landbridge."
There is frustration from the Freight Transport Association, which has complained that, whilst its members who operate road haulage fleets are spending hundreds of thousands of pounds retrofitting existing equipment to improve visibility in order to lessen the danger to cyclists, the pace of change from the relevant authorities to allow better designed heavy goods vehicles has been lamentably slow.
The Far East Land Bridge cargo cooperation, whose members aim to revolutionize rail connectivity along the Trans-Siberian route, has witnessed the first container freight train travel from Suzhou, China, to Warsaw, Poland. The 14-day transit resulted from a project among the government of the City of Suzhou in the Jiangsu Province, PKP Cargo (the Polish state railway) and RZD Logistics (part of Russia's rail behemoth).
As one of the most recent members of the European Union, Croatia is seen by many logistics groups a potential growth market and that has been reinforced with the news that the Gefco group, which specializes in automotive and industrial product logistics, is opening up a new subsidiary in Zagreb.
A note of caution was sounded recently after some intensive discussions between the EU Commission and various bodies who are stakeholders with regard to air cargo security.
Northgate Public Services, which has a track record in delivering IT solutions to central Government departments, has been appointed by the Department for Transport (DfT) to develop and operate the foreign operator payment system for the forthcoming heavy goods vehicle (HGV) road user levy.
