IMPROVING DOOR-TO-DOOR FREIGHT TRANSPORT-SOME NOTES ON A DECENTRALIZED

AIR-CARGO HANDLING SYSTEM

PAUL &RON Professor of Transport Planning and Engineering. University of Dortmund, Germany

Time and again, experts in the field have predicted an enormous growth in air-cargo traffic. Some even maintain, that ten years hence. air freight might be more important in terms of volume and revenues than passengers. And indeed, noticing recent trends in the philosophy of passenger and baggage handling as well as in aircraft configurations, there seems to be more than wishful thinking behind statements of this kind.

However, looking at air-freight facilities in many major airports around the globe, one begins to wonder whether they will ever be able to efficiently accommodate the forecast increase in the cargo business. This is not so much a question of advanced air-freight storage and retrieving techniques, both in terms of hard and soft ware-there has been tremendous progress in the past years. Also, shortages in available on-airport floor space have, in good time, be overcome to a certain extent by either replacing horizontal storage by sophisticated vertical systems in order to make optimum use of what space had been allotted, or by installing new freight terminals a short distance away from the airport. Considerably more important aspects seem to be, how in future to move air freightintoandoutof thegreaterairportarea(which,among others, encompasses the entire network of accessess and egress roads), and reduce door-to-door shipping time.

Observations in a number of German airports showed, that the average payload per delivery or pick-up vehicle is somewhere around 30 kg. This means, that per metric ton of export air freight, for instance, roughly 33 automobiles (car or truck) travel to the airport. Owing to the fact, that air cargo is mostly shipped on a last-minute basis, and that alI shippers follow a similar routine, it is safe to assume, that delivery trafiic will for many years to come stiIl converge onto the cargo terminal within a period of one to two hours.

It is easy to see, that an airport handling some 7000 tons of export air freight per annum will thus generate hourly traffic volumes of between 330 and 660 vehicles. This may not sound too disturbing, but there are many airports where the cargo-handling area is designed to process more than forty times this amount. Assuming that the average payload per vehicle remains essentially the same, 280,000 tons of export air freight per year (equivalent to a total cargo volume of 8,000,000 tons when export cargo accounts for one third, and import and transit freight for the remaining two) would require some 26,000 delivery vehicles per day. Even if these were evenly distributed over a period of, say, 5 hrs, road-traffic volumes would be

5200 automobiles per hour and demand 5 to 6 highway lanes reserved for freight traffic only. Taking into account, that afternoon peaks in delivery traffic generally overlap with peak passenger traffic, the total demand for road space serving airport access would ultimately be much higher in order to avoid severe ground-traffic congestion.

The other point to consider is door-to-door shipping time. In the air freight business, storage times account for a large proportion (in some cases of up to 90%) of total shipping time. There are a number of reasons for this, but one major cause for delay is, that consignees and freight forwarders frequently fail to pick up shipments im- mediately upon arrival. This applies especially to airports serving large catchment areas where customers and forwarders are understandably reluctant to travel long distances just to collect one (possibly small) parcel unless, of course, the shipment is urgently expected, and the consignee an important business partner. This may be a major obstacle against making wider use of air freight services.

Both problems mentioned above, road-traffic conges- tion in and around the airport area and delays in door-to-door shipping time, could, in theory, be at least partly overcome by installing strategically located air- cargo handling stations throughout the airport catchment area which are not, as is customary in many places, operated by only one specific forwarding agency, but available for all and everyone. Such stations could either provide full service, i.e. documentation, palletizing and containerizing, customs control, health inspection, and the like, or simply act as collection points for outgoing and incoming shipments originating in or destined to their particular service areas. In both cases, pick-up and delivery trips would be considerably shorter and thus more acceptable to customers and forwarders alike, and airport congestion avoided by linking the decentralized stations to the corresponding airport(s) by means of “collector modes” which operate regularly and carry much higher payloads than individual vehicles.

In practice, there are, needless to say, arguments against such a system. An important one is cost-would a number of small handling stations not be more expensive that one large facility, and is it feasible to install additional handling points when there is already an airport terminal in existence? As regards the first part of this question, investigations have so far indicated, that the principle of specific-cost degression does not seem to apply to air-freight installations. One reason for this may be, that

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the larger the cargo volume to be handled in one place, the more sophisticated and thus expensive the equipment required. Concerning the second aspect, there are reasons to believe that, even when the airport facility is maintained, this can be done at less expense, and that the savings in manpower and vehicle costs for customers and forwarders will outweigh any possible increase in handling fees. Another question is that of double handling and associated delays: Shipments are first collected at the remote stations, and then undergo another handling process at the airport, or vice versa. Essentially, this is a problem of cargo density within the service area, and of the number of routes served by the airlines using the airport(s), to which the decentralized stations are con- nected. If density is high, and there are only a few routes, shipments can be condensed or split-up at the remote stations, and by-pass the airport terminal altogether. On the other hand, where density is low and there are many routes and carriers, only collection and distribution may come into play. Criteria for the various alternatives in station location and operation are presently being de- veloped on the basis of empirical data and appropriate modelling techniques. A third problem is that of forwarder competition. Since the air-freight market is still relatively small and competition fierce, forwarders are

reluctant to disclose their customers and the procedures employed for a particular shipment to others. However, there is a fair chance to overcome this by using neutral staff to operate the remote stations, with negotiations between forwarder and airline taking place by telephone, telex, or other means of electronic communication. This would also obliterate the need to man the stations with extra airline personnel (an important cost factor), and at the same time increase handling staff productivity. Again, this problem is under investigation and receiving special attention.

To summarize: It is felt, that in view of the expected growth in air-cargo traffic, the present handling concept should be modified to prevent serious road-traffic congestion at major airports, reduce door-to-door ship- ping time, and generally make shipping freight by air a more feasible alternative. This applies especially, when large areas with a considerable growth potential are served by only one airport. One possibility to achieve this may be the installation of decentralized cargo handling stations connected to one or several airports by means of suitable “collector modes”. Problems related to this solution have been investigated, and from available results there are strong indications, that a decentralized system can be efficiently operated.