Freightliner’s work to implement its Terminal Gate Automation and Vehicle Booking System

Freightliner is one of the largest rail freight operators in the UK – transporting many different types of freight every day – from sand and stone, construction materials and other bulk materials to containers that are transported all around the world.

Freightliner owns and operates 11 strategically located terminals across the UK, a combination of port-based storage sites as well as inland rail-connected terminals. Capable of storing over 40,000 containers, each year the terminals handle between 250,000 and 300,000 road vehicles. These road vehicles collect and deliver containers from our intermodal rail services. They are operated by a combination of independent hauliers working for shipping lines and freight forwarders.

Due to the fast-moving nature of inland supply chains, fast turnaround times at our terminals are essential to maintain productivity and the onward movement of goods and cargo that passes through our terminals daily. Inland road vehicles operate within a short radius of our terminals therefore confidence in the on-time delivery of goods is critical to avoid facing delivery rejection or loss of earnings.

The main challenge faced by Freightliner was that we often did not have sight of when vehicles would arrive to collect their goods – it was also not straightforward to link each vehicle arriving to the specific container that they were arriving to collect. This would often lead to queues and delays. To make rail freight more attractive and increase our market reach, we needed to improve the customer experience at our terminals by offering a simple and more reliable service.

After extensive research, we procured two digital platforms that would be installed across every terminal as part of a state-of-the-art technology investment. These included the world’s largest VBS and intermodal cargo visibility platform and an automated gate management system.

These pivotal technology investments have enabled Freightliner to become the market leader and provide best-in-class turnaround times across our terminals portfolio. These optimisations have notably been through improving our terminal gate operations and increasing the efficiency of our terminal handling processes to improve our customers on-time delivery performance.

Key benefits include:

Improved vehicle turnaround times
Our technology investment reduced vehicle turnaround times dramatically. From an average turnaround time of <50 minutes pre-implementation to an average of under 25 minutes – an industry-leading innovation reducing turnaround times by over 50%.

Reduced emissions
A reduction of 3.27L Tonnes in CO₂ has been achieved for hauliers using our terminals. This is equivalent to 2,656 return trips from Southampton to Edinburgh in an average-laden HGV.

Financial benefits for terminal users
By reducing turnaround times and creating a user experience with greater reliability, haulier costs have been reduced by over £3 million per annum. This is driven by both fuel and driver savings which equates to an average saving of £9.38 per truck visit.

Our terminal investments have also created several key internal benefits for our operations and staff. The technology has created greater visibility for the operational teams and a more manageable delivery of activity.

These additional efficiencies have removed unnecessary lifting and reduced container blocking through improved visibility in the container stacks, it has given the Freightliner team the ability to assemble units for trains more efficiently – reducing the average number of lifts per container from 3.9 per visit, before our technology investment, to 2.7 per visit post technology investment.

We have also upskilled our Freightliner staff on new, more efficient systems which have introduced a solid knowledge base for future automation across the business. It has allowed for better integrated data analysis across the business creating the ability to make more data-backed, effective decisions. These include creating a more efficient lifting process and unlocking efficiencies at previously heavily congested terminals which has allowed for increased capacity at terminals as well as for additional rail services to run.

All terminal gates can be operated at a single location – our National Operations Centre facility in Birmingham. This new centre has brought together new and existing colleagues, in a refurbished office space and now provides a growing number of support functions to our terminal and road platforms.

We engaged with our terminal users throughout the implementation process across the UK and have received extremely positive feedback to the changes and improvements we have made across our terminal network across the UK. We are looking forward to seeing the sustained positive impact that our state-of-the-art terminal technology will continue to deliver for our customers day in, and day out.

By Chris Lawrenson, MD Intermodal Logistics, Freightliner UK/Europe