Cost savings become much smaller as ship sizes increase
beyond 5,000 TEU: OECD

Container shipping lines are poised to take delivery of a new generation of "megaships", writes John Kemp in Fort Lauderdale's Maritime Executive magazine. This comes just as the growth of world trade is slowing down, contributing to massive overcapacity in the market, he says.
Megaships, which can be up to 400 metres long, seem to be here to stay, not least because so many more are already on order, the product of high fuel costs and low interest rates. They are also the principal form of delivering goods from Asia to Europe as Europe and Asia and Europe have the deep water necessary to accommodate them.  >More
 

Beating the odds: How Russian railways plan to double
revenue in global forwarding via Gefco

GEFCO, French-based but mostly Russian railway-owned auto motive logistics group, is looking to more than double its revenue in global forwarding after its acquisition of IJS Global, said company chairman Luc Nadal.
"Purchasing IJS added EUR160 million [US$181.7 million] to Gefco's freight forwarding turnover, raising it to EUR400 million annually," said Mr Nadal. "The target is to increase this to EUR1 billion by 2020, which we think is a realistic target, achievable through organic growth and acquisitions."
This will enable Gefco, which is 75 per cent-owned by Russia's state railway, RZD, to diversify into other business lines, tap new markets and provide value-added services, he said.  >More
 

How the European refugee crisis impacts on European
logistics

PICTURES of refugees trying to cross European borders have become commonplace, writes John Manners-Bell, managing director of the UK's Transport Intelligence. Whether at Calais trying to jump trains or trucks bound for the UK, or on a much larger scale crossing en masse into Hungary, Austria or Croatia, the migrant crisis has dominated the political agenda, he writes.
Whereas the media has rightly highlighted the humanitarian consequences of the movement of thousands of people across the continent, little attention has been paid to the impact of the political response on European trade and transport.
One of the most successful results of greater European integration has been the free movement of goods and people throughout the Single European Market.  >More
 

European scientists consider how technology might
change future driving and road transport

WHILE there have been active experiments with "truck platooning" in America, in which groups of driverless trucks have been road tested, European transport scientists are now thinking in terms of incremental steps towards making this an everyday reality.
Much of the work is being done at the Germany's Technical University of Munich, and was on recently on display at "UR:BAN" conference last month at the Messe Dusseldorf trade fair grounds.
Such projects demonstrate that new technologies are going to change road traffic in the future and that vehicles will soon to be on our roads without drivers. >More