Advances in Freight Transport Shifts from Road to Rail Realize Fewer CO2 Emissions

Sekisui House, Ltd., a major housing construction company in Japan, started a modal shift project on January 6, 2011, to utilize rail instead of truck to ship structural materials for steel frame houses. The materials, after being produced at the company's Shizuoka factory in central Japan, were previously trucked to three factories in other parts of Japan, but those destined for Tohoku and Yamaguchi, the most distant from the Shizuoka factory, have been switched to railway transportation using purpose-built long containers. The new project will reduce 162.64 tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions per year.

Toshiba Lighting & Technology Corporation and Suntory Logistics Ltd. on January 1, 2011, also started a "circular rail transport" approach, in which the two companies would share railway containers to ship products back and forth between eastern and western Japan in an aim to reduce CO2 emissions by 140 tons per year. They agreed on this method as they were considering ways to shift from truck to rail for more efficient transportation, realizing that they could take advantage of the short distances between Suntory's factories and Toshiba's warehouses.

Ship and railway, two modes of transportation the Japanese government endorses as sustainable, have a larger advantage in long-distance bulk shipments. The above-mentioned examples in which a housing firm switches from road and rail while using exclusive containers to handle heavy products, and in which companies of different industries work together to pursue a "circular rail transport" method, are of the more advanced examples of solutions in transportation.

CO2 Emissions from the Japanese Transport Sector Already Decreasing (Related JFS article)
http://www.japanfs.org/en/mailmagazine/newsletter/pages/030151.html
Ministry Approves Ten Proposals to Promote Logistics Efficiency in FY2009 (Related JFS article)
http://www.japanfs.org/en/pages/029330.html

Posted: 2011/06/24 06:00:15 AM