What approach should central Government take to best manage and organise road freight / logistics in the UK to make it more efficient, resilient and reduce its environmental impact and what would be its likely impact on costs and competition in the supply chain?   

Background

The grow and level up the economy strategic priority is at the heart of the government’s agenda to spread opportunity across the UK. Transport has a crucial role to play, whether it be through improving connectivity across the United Kingdom and growing the economy by enhancing the transport network, on time and on budget. DfT has a number of specific interests in this space, notably our infrastructure projects, Places for Growth and our apprenticeships and skills work.

Next steps

Get in touch with bridgetoresearch@dft.gov.uk

Source

This question was published as part of the set of ARIs in this document:

DFT-Areas of research interest 2023 GOV UK

Related UKRI funded projects


  • Centre for Sustainable Road Freight 2018-2023

    This programme brings together teams from Herriot Watt University, the University of Cambridge, the University of Westminster and Durham University: providing a multidisciplinary focus on the research needed to enable an...

    Funded by: EPSRC

    Lead research organisation: University of Cambridge

    Why might this be relevant?

    This project focuses on research needed to enable and underpin radical measures to decarbonise the UK's road freight transport sector, which directly addresses the question of reducing the environmental impact of road freight logistics.

  • Reducing road freight empty running (REFER)

    This project will develop an innovative system for significantly reducing the levels of empty and part-filled running, ie backloading, of freight road vehicles. This will lead to reduced freight operating costs, fuel usa...

    Funded by: EPSRC

    Lead research organisation: De Montfort University

    Why might this be relevant?

    This project aims to reduce the levels of empty and part-filled running of freight road vehicles, which partially addresses the question of making road freight logistics more efficient and reducing its environmental impact.

  • National Freight Model (Phase 2)

    The UK Freight system is extensive comprising around 195,000 enterprises, 2.5 million employees, and contributing £121 billion gross value added (GVA) to the economy. In most places, LGVs and HGVs contribute ~30% o...

    Funded by: Innovate UK

    Lead research organisation: CITY SCIENCE CORPORATION LIMITED

    Why might this be relevant?

    This project focuses on developing a National Freight Model to provide adequate data for analyzing and planning freight solutions, but it does not directly address the question of managing and organizing road freight logistics in the UK.

  • TAILgate (Transport and Intelligent Logistics Gateway)

    TAILgate (Transport And Intelligent Logistics Gateway) aims to reduce the total number of UK annual road freight movements by 1.5% (1.5 million road journeys p.a.) and associated carbon emissions by some 250,000 tonnes b...

    Funded by: Innovate UK

    Lead research organisation: OMPROMPT LIMITED

  • Innovative Intermodal Urban Freight Transport Solution

    Urban supply chains suffer from, and are a significant contributor to, road congestion. The loss of business efficiency, increase in air pollution, damage to the road network etc. are estimated to cost the UK economy &po...

    Funded by: Innovate UK

    Lead research organisation: MOLE SOLUTIONS LIMITED

  • Freight Traffic Control 2050: transforming the energy demands of last-mile urban freight through collaborative logistics

    CONTEXT OF THE RESEARCH: Freight transport accounts for 16% of all motorised road vehicle activity in British towns and cities and is therefore a major consumer of fossil fuels and contributor to CO2 and air pollution. I...

    Funded by: EPSRC

    Lead research organisation: University of Southampton

    Why might this be relevant?

    Addresses the impact of collaborative logistics on urban freight efficiency and environmental impact.

  • TAILgate MATRIX

    The TAILgate MATRIX (TAILgate) DoP project builds on 3 previous TSB funded projects namely TAILgate 1 -“demonstrator”, Proof of Market and Proof of Concept between 2010-2013. TAILgate (Transport & Intelligent Logisti...

    Funded by: Innovate UK

    Lead research organisation: TGMATRIX LIMITED

  • Intelligent Multimodal Logistics Control and Brokerage Centre

    The public/published information about logistics transport volumes and costs is very broad. The statistical information is split into very broad categories and difficult to use for any practical purpose. There is also co...

    Funded by: EPSRC

    Lead research organisation: Coventry University

  • PUADO Dynamism

    Our proposal is to transform the £75 billion road haulage & distribution industry in much the same way as Uber is transforming the taxi industry. Like the taxi industry was, the haulage industry is characterise...

    Funded by: Innovate UK

    Lead research organisation: TRANSFACTION LIMITED

    Why might this be relevant?

    Proposes transforming the road haulage industry similar to Uber but focuses more on productivity and pricing.

  • FreightUp

    The UK road haulage industry is crucial economically (£41.2bn) and environmentally, 22% road surface emissions are from HGVs.Yet 29% of HGVs travel empty. Freight exchanges are web sites where users advertise avail...

    Funded by: Innovate UK

    Lead research organisation: RETURN LOADS LLP

    Why might this be relevant?

    Develops an 'uber-style' platform for on-demand transport in the road haulage industry to improve efficiency and reduce empty loads.