Project Summary

This project aims to maximise current rail freight capacity and unlock additional rail freight capacity by developing a solution which identifies the capacity to run additional freight trains and facilitates ‘last minute’ bookings, making rail freight more agile.

Project Achievements

Activities We undertook a high level of stakeholder engagement to fully understand the issues faced when trying to move container freight by rail at short notice. The insights enabled us to create a straw man for the overall solution and the data required to facilitate the development of the PoC. Several software iterations were demonstrated to members of the supply chain and the feedback went into further development, with the resultant solution getting a firm thumbs up.

Conclusions

We have proven, that by having access to the right data and the right time, it is possible to create the right conditions to help promote modal shift. We have achieved this by: giving visibility of available space on a freight train before it leaves and providing a mechanism for customers to book their containers to fill that space. The impact on the freight market is significant as it enables customers who would have historically transported their goods by road, to transfer their movement onto the railway.

Next Steps

We have been awarded funding from Innovate UK’s First of a Kind programme to further develop our solution, mainly around the creation of Machine Learning algorithms that will help identify paths that aren’t used; therefore, opening capacity to run additional trains. We are in discussions with Network Rail and the GBR Transition Team to determine how we take the Capacity Management solution forward and having conversations with the Google team who sponsor the Interchange UK Programme.