CIHT supports the current Future of Freight plan to move freight from road to rail and decarbonise the freight sector. But CIHT highlights the potential challenges of last-mile deliveries and pressing needs of the sector that should be urgently addressed.
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CIHT welcomed the government consultation on ‘Freight, logistics and the planning system’ and based our response on outcomes of a CIHT-hosted webinar and a survey.
On 12 September 2023, CIHT hosted a webinar in partnership with the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport (CILT) and speakers from National Highways, Midlands Connect, CILT and a CIHT Technical Champion – Lynda Addison. It was followed by a workshop with a series of questions for attendees to analyse the perception of government decarbonization targets and the overall freight, logistics and planning needs that people consider important. We backed up our response with a CIHT-led survey among TPS, RTPI and CILT members with a set of 9 questions similar to what the government asked in their consultation. The list of questions can be found in our response.
There are a number of key takeaways we would like to draw the attention of the government and decision makers.
43% of webinar attendees believed that Net Zero in freight transport is achievable by 2050, 23% said that it is definitely not possible before 2050 and remaining 34% were not sure.
Participants at the joint workshop identified the following priorities to support freight decarbonisation:
Based on the workshop and survey results, there are a number of important national needs or challenges in the freight and logistics sector that should be better reflected in planning policy and guidance. These include:
While respondents reported that they find the current planning system for freight overcomplicated and confusing, we believe actions to address this situation should include:
Overall, CIHT believes that the needs of freight and logistics should be better incorporated in Local Transport Plans, Local Plans, and in the National Planning Policy Framework. This requires a clear vision of how the national transport network is to be developed over the next few years – including maps (i.e., routes, National/Regional Distribution Centres), facilities, and strategic intermodal locations. There should be stronger government assistance to guide local authorities to forecast freight needs when considering their local transport plans and to clarify how to deal with cross-boundary issues, modal shift, and planning for distribution centres.
In the CIHT survey, respondents were asked to rank the last-mile delivery solutions for freight from the most efficient to the least efficient from the following list: e-cargo bikes, drones, light vans, automated robots, and 3D local printing instead of deliveries.
The most efficient last-mile solutions were e-cargo bikes (72% chose it as their first choice) and light vans (28% chose as their first choice, 44% as their second choice).
You can read about the potential drawbacks of e-cargo bikes, drones and automated robots in our full response.
In case you missed the webinar and the workshop, you can see the recording here.
For all policy and technical enquiries regarding the response please email technical@ciht.org.uk
For all press enquiries please email communications@ciht.org.uk
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