Freightliner Case Study
Orient Overseas Container Line (OOCL) and Freightliner have a contract to provide OOCL with a dedicated round trip train for ten years.
The train runs five days a week on a round trip basis between Southampton and Manchester. The route was chosen as Southampton is called at by OOCL’s deep-sea vessels to and from Asia and the USA, whilst Manchester is a natural inland rail hub for OOCL’s extensive customer base in the North of the UK with onward distribution by road to a 60 miles radius. Freightliner operates this service using a dedicated locomotive, named â€Å“OOCL Expressâ€Â , the arrangement being seen as offering stability for both parties over the 10 year contract period.
OOCL is committed globally to increasing intermodalism and has developed block train services between inland cities in China and deepsea ports and it is with this background operational philosophy that the UK service developed.
Ted Wang, Managing Director, OOCL (Europe) Ltd, London said, â€Å“This is a very important contract to OOCL for many different reasons. Firstly, it provides OOCL with long-term access to rail capacity when trucking in the UK is becoming increasingly difficult. In turn this allows us to maintain and improve upon our service quality to customers many of whom require a high standard of inland transport to and from their UK premises. Secondly, moving more of our business to rail helps the environment. Thirdly, it demonstrates OOCL as an innovator with a long-term vision being put into practice. I am confident OOCL will in the future transfer more of its inland transport in Europe from road to rail and this contract with Freightliner is a step in this direction.â€Â
The long-term commitment to Freightliner is based on past service successes but it is OOCL’s confidence in Freightliner’s ability to keep delivering an effective and reliable service that has secured it. It also shows that rail freight is not only an environmentally friendly transport alternative to congested UK roads but that rail freight services are also economically competitive
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