How is freight demand likely to change in the future? What impact will reduce transport costs of delivery have? 

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


  • 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?

    The project, National Freight Model (Phase 2), aims to fill the data gap in freight and provide a fully open National Freight Model that can be used for analysis and application, which can help answer the question fully. The authors have the necessary expertise to develop the model.

  • Decarbonising the UK's Freight Transport

    Like energy and automotive before it, UK freight transport is now on the cusp of a socio-technical transition away from fossil fuel dependency. This transition will require major investment to fleet and infrastructure, c...

    Funded by: EPSRC

    Lead research organisation: University College London

    Why might this be relevant?

    The project, Decarbonising the UK's Freight Transport, focuses on the decarbonization of freight transport and aims to collect and distill current knowledge, identify research challenges, and guide enabling policy. While it may not directly answer the question fully, it provides relevant insights and the authors have the necessary expertise in freight decarbonization.

  • Levelling up Freight

    **Background** Rail freight is vital to Britain. It contributes almost £2.5bn to the economy and plays a big part in reducing congestion and emissions. Rail is more environmentally friendly than road, with every t...

    Funded by: Innovate UK

    Lead research organisation: 3SQUARED LTD.

    Why might this be relevant?

    The project, Levelling up Freight, aims to make rail freight as accessible and easy to use as the road network through an innovative freight planning solution. While it may not directly answer the question fully, it provides relevant insights on improving freight transport and the authors have the necessary expertise in rail freight planning.

  • 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?

    The project specifically addresses how freight demand is likely to change in the future and the impact of reducing transport costs on delivery.

  • 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

  • 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

  • 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

  • TRACO

    In order to maximise the growth opportunities currently being presented to the rail freight industry through the availability of increased capacity today and in the future, intermodal terminal transition improvements mus...

    Funded by: Innovate UK

    Lead research organisation: INCREMENTAL SOLUTIONS LTD

  • 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

  • iPort Rail App

    Development and Demonstration of a collaborative Digital Platform Solution to Substantially Improve the Rail-Road Freight Interface This project aims to help address a strategic need to develop a capability of Flexible F...

    Funded by: Innovate UK

    Lead research organisation: HIVE LOGIC LIMITED