Delegates attending a European ShortSea Congress held in Dublin, Ireland (24-25 June) were told that shippers were forcing short-sea operators into a crisis. A representative from a European short-sea carrier said "We have been giving shippers what they want, faster transit times and at the same rates as previous years, but they just want more." He implied that shippers had forgotten what he called "the concept of partnership" and asked whether they were aware of "their own responsibility" to drive down costs and transit times.

I have had many conversations with shippers who have practically screamed out for co-operation and collaboration with carriers, forwarders and ports to work together to improve efficiencies and find cost savings in their freight transport and logistics chains; indeed they often say just how good the European short-sea sector is in delivering reliable services with good levels of customer care.

So why is it that this view expressed by Mr Connolly and his DFDS colleagues, and a view which met with considerable support from others attending the conference, is held?
The accusations are:
- shippers were not loading freight correctly and damages were occurring in transit - resulting in heated arguments as to who was to blame and who should compensate who;
- weight declarations were often greatly over- or under-stated giving rise to safety issues, affecting ships' and vehicles' trim and operating efficiency, and also putting road freight drivers at risk from fines if their vehicles were found to be contravening weight limits on the highways.
- New technology for improved communications and data transfer were being introduced in order to gain further efficiencies, and yet shippers still insisted on using the telephone for all their queries, day and night.
- Shippers refused to consider changing pick-up or delivery times that would help improve reliability, reduce delays, improve efficiency, reduce transit times and reduce costs – all the things shippers asked for but were not actually sharing the responsibility to deliver.

With operating margins (profit) at meagre levels (approximately 2 per cent was the figure quoted by a number of carriers), costs rising, especially fuel costs, and an economic slowdown, shippers had to take more responsibility for finding the efficiencies and cost reductions with the ports and carriers to avoid a crisis. This was a widely held view by speakers and delegates alike.

For a short-sea service (excluding deep-sea liner feeder services) to be viable, it is held that there needs to be in the order of half a million tonnes of traffic flowing between two regions. There are not many routes around Europe with that sort of traffic volume.

Short sea operators, ports and shippers need to co-ordinate their activities and co-operate to consolidate freight volumes in order to provide sustainable economically viable short sea services. But with margins apparently so low any way, with carriers being cheesed-off with shippers who seem unwilling to take responsibility for making this logistics and distribution option work, is there any point in trying to consolidate freight traffic flows?

Labels: shippers, short-sea shipping