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FeedsHome: June 2009 › First port of call
First port of call
03/07/2009 | Channel: Business Improvement, Freight
With terminals throughout the UK and Scotland, Roadway Container Logistics is able to fast-track units utilising direct rail connections
With a history dating back to 1896, Roadway Container Logistics has been through a number of guises in its century-long history. Recently owned by P&O Nedloyd, the company brand name arrived following the merger of Roadways and Container Base, and was sold to Agis Transport in 2008. Managing three inland terminals in Manchester, Leeds and Tamworth, the company has 100 acres of storage space at its disposal, meaning it can handle 10,000 TU (twenty-foot equivalent units) at any one time. Two of the terminals have direct rail connections while the third is within a 12-mile radius of a railhead. Roadway Container Logistics utilises its extensive fleet of 275 vehicles to reach customers across a wide geographical base. With depots in Felixstowe, Tilbury, Southampton, Liverpool and Cumbernauld, Scotland, the organisation’s 400-strong work force has far-reaching capabilities.
Nick Matthews, commercial director of the business outlines its key strengths: “The mainstay of Roadways is our infrastructure, our ability to offer and control inland road and rail transport movement. Owning the terminals means we can control the infrastructure, cost, and service levels, offering short deliveries to the DC’s and delivery points. This ability means that we can avoid all of the known issues with moving containers from A to B, namely congestion at ports and on the roads. We get fast-tracked through the port booking systems and our terminals lie within 30 miles of all the key ports, by using rail we are immune from most of the typical delays that container handlers have to deal with. In addition we are able to react very quickly to the changing demands of retailers by offering substitutions and deferments. We can bring boxes forward, deliver them and push them back all within the same day through our infrastructure – not many other companies can do this.”
Roadway Container Logistics has just started to establish business in Scotland with the development of a company relationship in Cumbernauld, this move has been made in order to explore possibilities for expansion into the rest of Scotland. The organisation is also considering terminal developments in Bristol, Thames Gateways and Tees, and due to the end of a lease in Manchester is considering potential options in the North West.
At the start of June the company re-signed a major contract worth over 40,000 TU’s a year and in May became gauge cleared in Birmingham following a three-year development programme with Network Rail and Advantage West Midlands. Being gauge cleared enables the company to receive trains from Felixstowe and Tilbury and daily services are already in action, while the Tamworth terminal is now receiving two more trains a day from Felixstowe and Southampton.
In April this year, Roadway Container Logistics attended the multimodal exhibition for the second time. This exhibition has proven to be hugely beneficial for customer relations, as Nick highlights: “We have justified the cost of being at the exhibition already only two months after the event. We have new business leads and connections that we were not aware of before and have found major opportunities for the future. It is a really good forum for sitting down and talking to people you’ve met before or those that you are trying to target and we are able to invite specific people along to translate opportunities into business.”
Such exhibitions are proving essential to the maintenance of proactive working levels especially in light of the global economic crisis. Operating in such a difficult market has meant that Roadway Container Logistics has to work harder in order to maintain the same business levels. Though the company has won new contracts and business links this year, more effort has to be put into retaining the organisation’s financial footing. Rates are deflated and the market is tough but by critically evaluating the cost base and staffing levels, whilst ensuring flexibility throughout the fleet, Roadway Container Logistics is set to come out of the crisis stronger than before. Nick comments: “We believe we have the right infrastructure, that we can attract new business, and even in the market we are in today, can win that new business. Our unique ability to offer a rail and road solution from our own terminals allows us to control cost and manoeuvrability with ease.”
He adds: “I think our future is very optimistic. We want to grow our business at a steady pace with much more business in strategic areas such as the North West and I think we could have a lot more involvement in new developing ports. We want to be the operator of choice when it comes to moving containers because we believe there’s no one else on the market that can truly compete with us. There are many separate hauliers, rail providers and yard owners in the industry but we are a single unit with high visibility and control measures. Over the coming years we are looking to add to our fleet and increase our terminal facilities.”
Nick Matthews, commercial director of the business outlines its key strengths: “The mainstay of Roadways is our infrastructure, our ability to offer and control inland road and rail transport movement. Owning the terminals means we can control the infrastructure, cost, and service levels, offering short deliveries to the DC’s and delivery points. This ability means that we can avoid all of the known issues with moving containers from A to B, namely congestion at ports and on the roads. We get fast-tracked through the port booking systems and our terminals lie within 30 miles of all the key ports, by using rail we are immune from most of the typical delays that container handlers have to deal with. In addition we are able to react very quickly to the changing demands of retailers by offering substitutions and deferments. We can bring boxes forward, deliver them and push them back all within the same day through our infrastructure – not many other companies can do this.”
Roadway Container Logistics has just started to establish business in Scotland with the development of a company relationship in Cumbernauld, this move has been made in order to explore possibilities for expansion into the rest of Scotland. The organisation is also considering terminal developments in Bristol, Thames Gateways and Tees, and due to the end of a lease in Manchester is considering potential options in the North West.
At the start of June the company re-signed a major contract worth over 40,000 TU’s a year and in May became gauge cleared in Birmingham following a three-year development programme with Network Rail and Advantage West Midlands. Being gauge cleared enables the company to receive trains from Felixstowe and Tilbury and daily services are already in action, while the Tamworth terminal is now receiving two more trains a day from Felixstowe and Southampton.
In April this year, Roadway Container Logistics attended the multimodal exhibition for the second time. This exhibition has proven to be hugely beneficial for customer relations, as Nick highlights: “We have justified the cost of being at the exhibition already only two months after the event. We have new business leads and connections that we were not aware of before and have found major opportunities for the future. It is a really good forum for sitting down and talking to people you’ve met before or those that you are trying to target and we are able to invite specific people along to translate opportunities into business.”
Such exhibitions are proving essential to the maintenance of proactive working levels especially in light of the global economic crisis. Operating in such a difficult market has meant that Roadway Container Logistics has to work harder in order to maintain the same business levels. Though the company has won new contracts and business links this year, more effort has to be put into retaining the organisation’s financial footing. Rates are deflated and the market is tough but by critically evaluating the cost base and staffing levels, whilst ensuring flexibility throughout the fleet, Roadway Container Logistics is set to come out of the crisis stronger than before. Nick comments: “We believe we have the right infrastructure, that we can attract new business, and even in the market we are in today, can win that new business. Our unique ability to offer a rail and road solution from our own terminals allows us to control cost and manoeuvrability with ease.”
He adds: “I think our future is very optimistic. We want to grow our business at a steady pace with much more business in strategic areas such as the North West and I think we could have a lot more involvement in new developing ports. We want to be the operator of choice when it comes to moving containers because we believe there’s no one else on the market that can truly compete with us. There are many separate hauliers, rail providers and yard owners in the industry but we are a single unit with high visibility and control measures. Over the coming years we are looking to add to our fleet and increase our terminal facilities.”
