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.