Network Rail and Highways England have published the first phase of the Solent to the Midlands Multimodal Freight Strategy.
The study forms part of Network Rail’s long-term planning process and Highways England’s route strategy and pioneer projects work, both designed to identify investment priorities for the future.
It found that roads are critical to complete the door to door journeys for shorter distances, such as regional and local movements or the last mile from a rail freight interchange, while rail is most cost effective over longer distances and for higher loads.
In addition to this, the study says that rail and road both have similar reliability in terms of journey times, key for freight consumers where much freight is time dependent.
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