Taking stock after five years
Rail-road transhipment centre in Penthalaz with increasing volumes. An investment in the Suisse Romande is paying off handsomely. Planzer Transport recently celebrated the fifth anniversary of its railway centre in Vaud and is simultaneously responding to growing local demand with further investment at the site. The storage area in the Venoge Parc there is set to be doubled and a new high-bay warehouse built, amongst other things.
The cutting of the ribbon, symbolising the opening of the ‘Penthalaz Rail Centre’, took place at an inauguration ceremony five years ago, when the facility was officially opened in the presence of a central government minister.
Since then, in 2018, Planzer Transport has seen business activity at this location in the Gros-de-Vaud district of the canton of Vaud rise steadily. The group has announced that it’s now set to make “further significant investments in the Venoge Parc industrial estate, in order to meet growing customer demand.”
Planzer’s railway centre in Penthalaz remains the largest combined rail-road transport facility in the Suisse Romande. The building was erected at the end of a new 300 m dedicated rail spur that is directly connected to the network of SBB, the national railway enterprise.
Freight transport on the rise
For the multi-stage cross-docking handling of the cargo flows, there’s space for a total of 18 railway wagons on one side of the 232 m building. On the other side there are 31 loading ramps for trucks, in contrast. Goods are sorted and reloaded on the ground floor of the building, on a total area of 5,500 m2.
The volume of goods handled between rail and road at the Penthalaz Rail Centre has increased by 25% since the facility went into operation in 2018, says Planzer.
Between 18 and 20 SBB wagons were handled per night when the facility started operations. In the meantime this figure has risen to an average of 25 wagons in the same time. The Penthalaz Rail Centre, one of thirteen units of its kind that Planzer operates, handles approximately 640 t of goods for transport by rail and road every day.
In addition to transporting goods at the site, parcels weighing less than 30 kg and further logistics services are part of Planzer’s options available at the centre. At the end of 2022 Planzer significantly expanded its sorting and handling facility for small parcels too, in order to have the capacity to respond to growth in the latter two fields as well.
In addition, the company is planning to build a new automated high-bay warehouse on a plot of land southwest of the Penthalaz Rail Centre.
The market for the transport of parcels weighing less than 30 kg is growing rapidly too, as e-commerce continues to balloon. It is estimated that online trade in Switzerland increased by 15% overall in the course of last year.
Services in Penthalaz, launched under the Planzer CEP brand in 2018, started with 14 vans and 20 employees. Today the site in Vaud has more than doubled the number of vehicles in operation, with a further 18 in action compared to five years ago.
Nearly 2,000 parcels are shipped locally every day, which now accounts for 8% of the total volume transported by the group nationwide.
16,000 slots aren’t enough
Planzer doesn’t want to miss out on the opportunities in the segment. As early as October 2022, it enlarged its sorting and handling facility for small parcels by adding a 2,500 m2 extension. This now houses 30 loading bays and is connected to the main building by a 22 m walkway.
In view of the very different types of cargo handled, two sorts of ramps with different heights to handle trucks and vans were installed in the facility. They provide the necessary height compensation required between the building and the lorries.
The railway centre’s three storage levels, covering an area of approximately 16,500 m2, can store goods in a total of 16,000 pallet slots. Two floors have continuous temperature control systems to store pharmaceutical products at 15 – 25°C. This space is now full, each floor is chockablock.
Doubling total storage capacity
This is why Planzer is now set to build a brand-new automated warehouse on a plot of land to the southwest of the main building, as previously mentioned above. This should almost double the company’s total storage capacity at the site in the medium term.
The public consultation process will start in autumn. The forthcoming project represents a total investment of CHF 35 million for Planzer. This is actually a second tranche, as Planzer already invested around CHF 80 million in the construction of the plant at the time it opened in 2018. The train remains on track.