Professor Alan McKinnon:

The Chairman's first question related to rail freight and increasing rail's share of the freight market in Ireland. He is right. The average length of haul is very low on the road network. It is difficult for the railways to compete where the length of haul is short but one must also factor in other variables. It also depends partly on the quantity of freight being moved. Here in the UK, there are examples of perfectly viable rail connections over distances of 40 or 50 miles. Backloading can also improve the commercial viability of the service. Another factor that must be taken into account is the proportion of factories and warehouses in Ireland that have a rail connection. I suspect relatively few do. In that case, one is dependent on an intermodal operation which includes a road feeder movement at one or both ends of the transit. Where the length of the rail haul is very short, long road feeder movements make it very difficult to provide the service competitively.

If one looks at the EU's smart and sustainable mobility strategy, published in December, one will see that the strategy's main emphasis is on freight modal shift. There is a move under way in the EU and globally to get more freight onto rail. Ireland should attempt to do that insofar as possible. It would, however, be starting from a very low base. The contribution the freight modal split will make to Ireland's decarbonisation by 2030 will probably be quite limited.

The Chairman's second point related to empty running. I do not know why Ireland has a higher level of empty running by trucks than other EU member states. To some extent, it may be due to geographical imbalances in the traffic flow. It could also be to do with the length of haul. If the average length of haul is very short, companies do not have a great incentive to find a backload. If the average length of haul in Ireland was 500 km, companies would put a lot of time and effort into finding return loads. The one positive thing I can say in this regard is that digitalisation is changing the freight market. This is creating the opportunity for companies to find matching loads in both directions electronically. More and more companies are participating in that. We recently carried out a survey of more than 90 senior executives in logistics across Europe and the one trend on which they were all agreed was that digitalisation is going to transform logistics over the next five to ten years. That will be reflected in a reduction in the empty running of trucks everywhere, including in Ireland.