2024 will be an election year in the UK and trade associations are seeking to influence the content of the political parties’ manifestoes. Logistics UK, the trade body that represents the third party logistics providers and large-scale shippers and receivers of goods, published its own pitch called Unleashing the power of logistics to drive growth across the whole economy in January.   At the end of the chapter on the theme of a Fair transition to a green economy , in which it argued for a “co-created logistics roadmap to net zero and the phase-out of fossil fuels”, it slipped in a request for, “The government to work with our sector on plans for road pricing”.

At one level it seems rather odd for a trade association to be so open to the introduction of a new form of taxation on its members’ activities, but the logistics industry in the UK seems to have realised that being taxed for use of the highways network is unavoidable and it’s best to engage with the process. When asked whether his members regarded road pricing as inevitable by the Chair of the House of Commons Transport Committee in October 2021, a representative of the Road Haulage Association (RHA) - which represents the small and medium-sized road hauliers – replied, “Yes, I think so”.

As fast and ultra-fast fashion grows with the rise of Far Eastern brands such as Shein and Temu, so does the pressure on the airfreight market. This puts into question the sustainability of their e-commerce model given the competition for airfreight capacity and its environmental implications.

Changes in the container shipping industry during the past two decades have prompted UNCTAD and MDSTransmodal to undertake a second revision of methodology to calculate the LSCI and PLSCI datasets. This revision will be applied on 15 March 2024 to the data release for the first quarter of 2024 (Q1/2024) and both data series since 2006.

MDS Transmodal (MDST) carried out a commercial vehicle traffic survey in November 2023 as part of a programme of work to develop a freight strategy for Chester city centre. It follows from the survey of businesses which investigated the perception of businesses regarding the delivery and collection of freight in the city centre, much of which has been pedestrianised with a time window for access by vehicles in the morning and evening. This commercial vehicle traffic survey of the morning peak for deliveries between 07.00 and 11.00 in the heritage city centre showed that 76% of vehicles were light goods vehicles, 18% were (generally small) HGVs, 6% were waste collection vehicles and 1% were bicycles being used for food deliveries. Just under 3% of all movements were by zero emission vehicles (including bicycles).

While there is an urgent need to provide additional parking facilities for both HGV and LGV drivers, new sites should be appropriately located so that they can best serve the operational requirements of the sector, but also conform with planning policy and minimise their environmental impacts. This has now been confirmed by a recent planning decision relating to a proposed lorry park in the Cotswolds.

While Britain remains Ireland’s most important trading partner, trade statistics suggest that, after Brexit, Ireland is gradually switching its inbound supply chains away from Great Britain and towards the rest of the European Union.

The Zero Emission Vehicle Mandate provides a strong financial incentive for manufacturers to sell a rapidly increasing proportion of zero emission vehicles up to 2030 - when 70% of all LGVs sold must be zero emission. This will require market uptake of zero emission LGVs at a rate similar to that for internet access in households at the turn of the century.

As a steady flow of newbuildings on the water drove supply growth above demand last year, container shipping lines looked to long-haul deployment and port rationalisation to limit the impact.

Maersk was the most active box carrier through the Suez before its recent decision to pause transits.