Limiting freight flows, still a taboo idea for the transition?

The vision of the ener­gy tran­si­tion of freight trans­port is very often strong­ly focused on tech­nol­o­gy, which is indis­pens­able but also insuf­fi­cient and faces many obsta­cles. The answer to this is often to evoke the modal shift as the main alter­na­tive to lim­it the trans­port by heavy goods vehi­cles (see the pre­vi­ous arti­cles in link). But the sce­nar­ios also show a major poten­tial for mod­er­at­ing trans­port demand, i.e. lim­it­ing the flow of goods.

Prospec­tive sce­nar­ios in France show very dif­fer­ent trends in trans­port demand by 2050, from about +80% to almost ‑50% depend­ing on the sce­nario (see first arti­cle). Depend­ing on the path tak­en, the chal­lenges in terms of logis­tics or resource and ener­gy con­sump­tion will vary great­ly. The same is true in terms of the effect of this fac­tor on the evo­lu­tion of emissions.

Thus, the poten­tial of modal shift will be lim­it­ed with­out a more glob­al recon­sid­er­a­tion of the vol­umes and organ­i­sa­tion of logis­tics flows. On the con­trary, its modal share will be able to increase all the more if total demand is not grow­ing strong­ly, if road trans­port is dis­ad­van­taged, and if the modal shift pol­i­cy is part of a glob­al evo­lu­tion con­sis­tent with region­al plan­ning, indus­tri­al pol­i­cy and the evo­lu­tion of logis­tics chains (see 3rd arti­cle).

The tech­no­log­i­cal options for decar­bon­i­sa­tion are also con­front­ed with con­straints on avail­able resources, whether bio­mass (bio­gas, agro­fu­els), elec­tric­i­ty and/or met­als (elec­tric­i­ty, hydro­gen). Reduc­ing traf­fic will lim­it these con­straints and facil­i­tate the exit from fos­sil fuels, which dom­i­nate today for liq­uid and gaseous fuels (methane) and for the pro­duc­tion of hydro­gen (see 2nd arti­cle).

The finan­cial cost of the tran­si­tion will also be reduced, both in terms of invest­ment costs in infra­struc­ture (logis­tics, trans­port, ener­gy, etc.), the cost of renew­ing vehi­cle fleets and the cost of pro­duc­ing energy.

Final­ly, lim­it­ing freight traf­fic will simul­ta­ne­ous­ly reduce many of the exter­nal­i­ties of trans­port: con­ges­tion, wear and tear on infra­struc­ture, air and noise pol­lu­tion, acci­dents, the need for logis­tics space, and pol­lu­tion linked to the extrac­tion of resources.

The way to count the trans­port demand fac­tor is the tonne​.km (which cor­re­sponds to 1 tonne moved over 1 km). Domes­tic freight trans­port in France cor­re­sponds to about 330 bil­lion t.km, or about 14 t.km per day and per per­son (or 100 kg over 140 km, for exam­ple)¹.

We can men­tion 3 ways to mod­er­ate this demand for freight:

• Reduce the tons to be trans­port­ed, by sobri­ety in the mate­r­i­al con­sump­tion of the economy;
• Reduc­ing the num­ber of kilo­me­tres trav­elled, by relo­cat­ing the econ­o­my in order to reduce trans­port distances;
• Reduce the num­ber of inter­me­di­aries between extrac­tion and ini­tial pro­duc­tion, then the final con­sumer or delivery.

To take some exam­ples accord­ing to the type of goods:

• In agri­cul­ture and food, these three levers can be used in the tran­si­tion, by lim­it­ing food waste (low­er tons), more local food (low­er dis­tances), and the devel­op­ment of short cir­cuits (reduc­tion of intermediaries);
• For con­struc­tion mate­ri­als, which rep­re­sent large vol­umes but over fair­ly lim­it­ed dis­tances, the vol­ume reduc­tions could be sig­nif­i­cant through the reduc­tion of new con­struc­tion due to demo­graph­ic changes, through reha­bil­i­ta­tion and ren­o­va­tion rather than new con­struc­tion, or through the con­struc­tion of col­lec­tive rather than indi­vid­ual housing;
• In indus­try or for man­u­fac­tured goods, this depends more glob­al­ly on the evo­lu­tion of indus­tri­al pol­i­cy, as well as on the sobri­ety and struc­ture of con­sump­tion. This will have an impact on domes­tic flows but also on inter­na­tion­al flows, giv­en the impor­tance of imports of con­sumer goods;
• Final­ly, in the ener­gy sec­tor, about one third of the ton­nages han­dled in French ports are hydro­car­bons (oil and gas)². These flows are expect­ed to decrease sig­nif­i­cant­ly if the ener­gy tran­si­tion is suc­cess­ful, with­out being com­pen­sat­ed in com­pa­ra­ble pro­por­tions by replace­ment means (ener­gy, met­als, renew­able ener­gy pro­duc­tion means, bat­ter­ies, etc.).

Unlike the tech­no­log­i­cal and modal shift levers, which are large­ly based on changes with­in the logis­tics sec­tor, mod­er­at­ing trans­port demand depends large­ly and even essen­tial­ly on changes in oth­er sec­tors of the econ­o­my. As always, and even more so in this case, the tran­si­tion must there­fore be looked at in a suf­fi­cient­ly broad man­ner to ensure that rel­e­vant devel­op­ments are sought. Many of the devel­op­ments linked to the eco­log­i­cal tran­si­tion are in line with the mod­er­a­tion of demand (as men­tioned above). 

How­ev­er, there are three poten­tial risks to be con­sid­ered to ensure that the objec­tive of demand mod­er­a­tion is not achieved at the expense of oth­er vir­tu­ous developments:

• As freight trans­port flows are by nature inter­act­ing with the dif­fer­ent sec­tors of the econ­o­my, there may be an increase in flows for cer­tain types of mate­ri­als or sec­tors in the tran­si­tion, for exam­ple for met­als, bio­mass, or the flows need­ed to imple­ment a more cir­cu­lar econ­o­my. These flows will often be low­er than with the cur­rent fos­sil econ­o­my and will have to be ratio­nalised but should not be neglect­ed in the transition.
• Also, rein­dus­tri­al­i­sa­tion in France will have the effect of lim­it­ing cer­tain inter­na­tion­al flows (mar­itime in par­tic­u­lar) but may on the con­trary increase cer­tain flows with­in France. Thus, relo­cat­ing cer­tain stages of pro­duc­tion of indus­tri­al prod­ucts and con­sumer goods will bring more tons​.km than just ensur­ing the final deliv­ery to con­sumers from ports or borders.
• Final­ly, we must be care­ful not to demas­si­fy logis­tics with the reduc­tion of dis­tances and vol­umes. In fact, high vol­umes over long dis­tances favor high­er-capac­i­ty trucks and/or modal shift to riv­er or rail. With­out this pre­cau­tion, the slight­est opti­miza­tion of flows may in some cas­es more than off­set the ben­e­fits of demand moderation.

The evo­lu­tion of freight trans­port demand will be a deter­min­ing fac­tor in achiev­ing the decar­bon­i­sa­tion objec­tives, in a con­text of dif­fi­cul­ties and strong iner­tia in the oth­er levers. It is all the more nec­es­sary to move towards the sce­nar­ios with the low­est freight flows, since the changes envis­aged in the future are very dif­fer­ent: a fac­tor of 3.5 between an almost twofold reduc­tion and an increase of up to 80%, depend­ing on the scenario.

Although cer­tain risks are to be antic­i­pat­ed, this evo­lu­tion is glob­al­ly con­sis­tent with an econ­o­my that seeks greater sobri­ety and a cer­tain relo­ca­tion of pro­duc­tive activ­i­ties. In view of the lit­tle inter­est so far in these devel­op­ments, but also of the com­plex­i­ty of the sub­ject, it is nec­es­sary to focus more on this major lever.