Combined Transport Increased Shipments by 9.3 Percent in 2021

Kombiverkehr KG shifted a total of 937,959 truck shipments (one shipment corresponds to the capacity of a truck) or 1.88 million TEU from road and sea routes to environmentally friendly rail last year. “With an increase in transported shipments of 9.3 percent compared to the previous year, we are clearly on a growth path, having already surpassed the transport volume from pre-Corona times in the summer of 2021.

(Frankfurt/Main) At the beginning of 2022, we set the course for further positive company development with new product offerings and capacity expansions,” comments Managing Director Alexander Ochs on the shipment results of the previous year. To competitively meet the persistently high demand for intermodal services, rising electricity price developments for traction services must be mitigated, and national and international construction site management must be harmonized for a predictable quality of service. “2021 was also a year with various operational challenges, which we were largely able to master with stability, flexibility, and resilience as a network provider,” adds fellow Managing Director Armin Riedl. “At the end of the year, we could have grown even stronger. However, train configurations due to missed terminal slots or disrupted wagon cycles due to the quality of service of the railways prevented this.”

For the future, Riedl considers a harmonized construction site management at both national and international levels to be essential. “Our requirements for the network operators are therefore to build concentrated, keep corridors open, and communicate construction sites early. And to the politicians, to provide financial resources for the fluidity of construction sites. The potential for shifting to environmentally friendly rail is more present than ever, which can also be realized with adequate quality of service.”

Positive Shipment Development in All Transport Areas

In the second pandemic year, intermodal transport once again proved to be a reliable transport alternative to continuous road freight transport, positively impacting business development in conjunction with an attractive service portfolio featuring 170 daily direct trains to more than 25 countries in Europe. Kombiverkehr KG saw increases in all transport areas. In traffic with the German Baltic Sea ports (83,486 truck shipments) by 3.2 percent, in international traffic (663,949 truck shipments) by 8.5 percent, and in national traffic (190,521 truck shipments) even double-digit by 15.4 percent.

The reasons for the volume growth are diverse. The integration of the rapid transshipment facility MegaHub Lehrte not only connected a significant regional economic area to the operator’s European intermodal network but also created additional routings in domestic and European traffic with expanded capacities via the new hub in eastern Hanover. Additionally, new train products via Switzerland to and from Mortara in northern Italy established connections in Benelux traffic, whose traffic frequencies were already increased during the year due to rising demand. New traffic routes were also created, for example, between Munich and Wels in Austria, along with various capacity expansions on existing routes.

Strong Start to 2022

With new offerings such as the connection from Nuremberg to Rotterdam Cobelfret, which has been offered since mid-January in production cooperation with TFG Transfracht GmbH, Kombiverkehr is creating new continental transport opportunities to and from Great Britain. “Even with Company Trains, which perfectly complement our product portfolio as an intermodal operator, we see opportunities to meet customer requirements and successfully position our services in the market. The open train network is and remains the measure of all things for us, our limited partners, and numerous freight forwarding customers,” Ochs provides insight into the strategic product orientation. “We support every logistics company in transitioning from road to intermodal transport with our KV coaching to make the entry onto the rail as easy as possible.”

As another accelerator for combined transport, the company looks to the EU’s economic forecast for the current year, which predicts a growth of 4.4 percent for the Eurozone, but simultaneously warns of potential disruptions in logistics chains that could arise from Omicron or other virus variants in the short to medium term. With proactive pandemic concepts, Kombiverkehr KG, together with its service partners, is doing everything possible to maintain operational stability at all times.

Over 1.1 Million Tons of Carbon Dioxide Saved

The increased volume of over 937,000 shipments also reduces the CO₂ footprint of the intermodal provider’s customers. With 1,107,600 tons, the emission savings were one hundred tons above the previous year’s figures. In addition to the ongoing issues of driver shortages and resource bottlenecks, climate protection is currently high on the list of reasons for combined transport. The results achieved together with customers show that climate goals can indeed be achieved through the main run on the rail. The intermodal service provider will promote the offering of climate-neutral transport solutions with its traction partners to realize a CO₂-free transport chain in the long term.

Photo: © Kombiverkehr