Inland Rail to enable modal shift

At the Future of Freight event held by the Committee for Economic Development of Australia (CEDA) in Melbourne on 17 July, a panel of logistics industry experts discussed the need for, and barriers to, a modal shift in Australia’s freight transportation network.
John Fullerton, CEO of Australian Rail Track Corporation (ARTC), noted that the nation’s much-discussed growing freight task will heavily impact the east coast.
“If you look at Melbourne to Brisbane, currently only 25 per cent of that freight moves by rail, 75 per cent is on road,” he said. “Compare that to Melbourne all the way to Perth, we’ve got 75 per cent of the freight on rail, primarily because we run trains to different schedules, we’re more competitive, we can run trains a lot longer, and we can double stack those trains out of Adelaide.”
The purpose for Inland Rail, he added, will be to complete the network of track between Australia’s capital cities that can carry world class–configured trains. “We’re going to get more freight onto the network, to handle freight for the future and get a better, more productive market share,” he said.
Maurice James, Managing Director of logistics and infrastructure company Qube, added that he sees the Inland Rail project as a great opportunity.
“I think [people] are underestimating the benefits of Inland Rail,” he said, adding that the time is right for the construction of a “huge” intermodal terminal at either end of the rail line, in Melbourne and Brisbane, to drive freight to rail.
“Freight doesn’t just come to rail,” he said. “Freight goes to rail when rail is more efficient against road.
“The opportunity that Melbourne and Victoria have is to identify where is that big intermodal terminal at the end of the Inland Rail [going to go]?”
James noted that Qube will soon discuss ‘fragmented supply chains’ with the management of the Port of Melbourne.
“At its worst, between a container coming into the Port of Melbourne, or any port, and the product ending up on the shelves, there could be anywhere up to 12 or 14 different truck movements,” he said. “People thinking about the product going to the warehouse, then to the store – [they don’t realise] everything behind that container, where the empty container goes, the reuse of the empty as a export commodity, how it gets back to the port.”
Qube’s model, he shared, is to focus on making sure every container coming through Australia is used as efficiently as possible.
“The logistics challenge ahead for the country is quite simple,” he shared. “It’s truck movements to rail head, a rail movement to Brisbane, and a truck movement to a final destination, competing with a truck, door to door.
“[Truck door to door] is quite easy, from a pricing, costing, efficiency perspective, but if you had…an intermodal hub in Melbourne and Brisbane and you’ve effectively [got] rail competing door to door with road, then you’ve got a serious chance of a significant modal shift.”