Modal Shift Contributes to 3.9% Increase Over Last Year in Container Transport by Rail

Japan Freight Railway Company has announced that the volume of containers transported by rail in the first half of fiscal 2003 (April-September) showed a 3.9 percent increase from the previous year, although the total volume of rail freight transport, which includes both rail containers and freight cars, decreased by 5 percent.

According to the company's figures, monthly volumes during the first half of fiscal 2003 for rail container transport*, in which freight is loaded and transported in containers, showed increases of 1.4 to 7 percent over the previous year, while monthly volumes for freight car transport**, in which freight is loaded and transported in freight cars, showed decreases of 12 to 18 percent over the previous year.

As factors contributing to the increase in rail container transport, the company points to 1) the results of modal shift experiments conducted by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport aimed at reducing CO2 emissions; 2) impacts of a system of subsidies aimed at reducing CO2 emissions that has entered its second year; 3) implementation of speed limit regulations starting from September 2003, and 4) enforcement of full-scale regulations on diesel-powered vehicles in the Tokyo metropolitan district starting from October 2003.

*Rail Container Transport (Cargo transport by containers, which are either 12 feet long for five tons of freight or 20 feet long for ten tons of freight)
Cargo is loaded into a container at a customer service deck and transported by truck to a freight station. After being loaded onto a freight train by forklift or other equipment, the cargo is transported by train to the destination's nearest freight depot, reloaded onto a truck and transported to the final destination.

**Freight Car Transport (Cargo transport by freight cars such as tank cars)
Raw materials from factories, such as petroleum, cement or chemicals, are loaded at designated loading stations and transported to their destinations.



Posted: 2004/01/06 11:56:18 AM
Japanese version