Real culprits in UK lorry driver shortages

 Logistics has long been the poor relation of Britain's economy and despite all the breast beating by interested parties not much has changed but who are the real culprits who have given the industry a reputation for low pay, which is a key driver for workplace shortages?

Right now there is a clutch of problems plaguing global logistics but many of these, like the chaos surrounding container shortages and long shipping delays, are short-term. Years before Brexit and Covid 19 the seismic change in the way we all shop exposed the perennial problem of driver shortages, currently estimated at 60,000 in Britain. The ingredients of this shortage were low pay, long unsocial hours, dreadful roadside facilities for drivers to wash, eat and feel secure in their parking compounds, all experiences unknown on the Continent where drivers are treated with more respect.

The factors that led to this parlous state ultimately lie at the door of manufacturers and retailers whose obsession with maintaining good profit margins was at the expense of the 3PLs' margins which were often wafer thin, causing bankruptcies. This is important because much of Britain's goods movement is done by 3PLs often locked into 5-year contracts where they have little room for manoeuvre when their costs rise. In short the 3PLs were screwed long term by their clients and were helped in this by their exploitation of cheaper, foreign drivers.

It has been aired that the labour shortages are being blamed for distress in other areas outside logistics, like in food production, and here the post Brexit return of EU nationals, including drivers to their native countries, is blamed. Such distress, however, is short-term and can be addressed by a mixture of automation and better pay and conditions. In the broccoli picking fields of England, for example, a robo veg picker has been successfully trialled and while costing £400,000 it can replace seven human pickers who can earn up to £30 an hour and such robots are likely to fall in cost when economies of scale improve. 

So if we see driver and warehouse operators' incomes rise would the downside by significant inflation? This is a difficult one to call but we should remember that logistics (distribution and storage) forms less than 10% of a product's retail price and when the current, transitory logistics upheavals have normalised it should not be too worrisome. Meanwhile some mea culpa would be in order by the ultimate culprits, namely manufacturers and retailers, who are hoist by their own petard.

More respect for drivers would see less of this

Britain's first electric general cargo port crane proves 'green' economics

 As a UK general cargo port Ipswich may not be big league but it surely ranks with the best when proving the case for 'green' port economics. Ports going fully electric when handling container movements, particularly on mainland Europe, have been around for over a decade but when handling a wide range of general cargoes they are much scarcer but the owners of Ipswich, Associated British Ports, saw not only the business case for going all electric with their cranes but also listened to their customer's desires.

Hitherto, Ipswich, which handles over two millions tonnes of general cargo a year, worth over £600 million, making it the biggest export port for agricultural products, relied on a Mantsinen 95R diesel crane. Its two new, free-ranging cranes on order, the 95RE, part of a £4 million investment, are due to begin service next year and are believed by Cooper Specialised Handling, Mantsinen's UK partner in the supply contract, to be the first fully mains electric powered hydraulic cranes in a general UK port application. What's more they have been configured around the idiosyncrasies on the quays of the Orwell river. 

The new models, for example, will benefit from a 4mt centre undercarriage, some 2.5mt narrower than the standard crane yet does not compromise operational speed. They will be capable of handling over 500 tonnes an hour and its Insight telematics system will work out the cost per tonne moved. 

So what of the economic case? ABP has already reduced its greenhouse gas emissions by 35% at Ipswich since 2014 and its latest investment will mean all its cargo handling operations will be fully electrified within five years, much reducing its CO2 emissions and noise. This is helped by the existing 4,000 solar panels which will generate enough energy for the two new cranes. Its investment in an electricity sub station infrastructure will future-proof it to accommodate up to four electric cranes working concurrently on the same quay. ABP, which plans to decarbonise all its ports, estimates the electric cranes will save over 40% in energy costs and to quote a company spokesman: "Going green does not cost the Earth."

A Mantsinen 95ER electric crane at work in Rauma