Urban Logistics Innovation, Lead by Lyon

Lyon, France

Lyon’s LUTB (Lyon Urban Truck & Bus) research and development cluster is developing heavy hybrid vehicles for low-carbon urban logistics. The effects of their innovative solutions will “radiate across the world”. 

In July 2005, the Centre of Excellence label was granted to the Lyon Urban Truck&Bus 2015 research cluster, founded by Renault Trucks (Volvo Group), Irisbus-Iveco (Fiat Group), IFP Energies nouvelles, the French National Institute for Transport & Transport Safety Research (INRETS), the Greater Lyon Area and the Lyon Chamber of Commerce & Industry (CCI).

Lyon Urban Truck&Bus (LUTB) represents one of the 10 French transport clusters, and its unique goal is to sustainably meet the challenges raised by the growth in the need for mobility of people and goods in urban environments. Recent governement funding granted to LUTB has had a “huge impact” on the cluster’s development of heavy hybrid vehicles for low-carbon urban logistics, whose whose effects will “radiate across the world”, according to Isabelle Rivière-Cazaux, Director of Innovation and Development at LUTB.

LUTB has five areas of focus for their research and development projects:

Engine Driveline & Powertrain, which aims to develop a high-performance, environmentally friendly powertrain for diverse urban transport applications. This includes engine optimisation for diesel, controlled ignition, fuels, alternative fuels and post treatment, as well as hybrid motor development of subsystems (batteries, supercapacitors, electric motors), integration & energy optimization.

The Integrated Safety & Security arm designs solutions to improve the safety and security of industrial vehicles, including improving user safety in accidents involving industrial vehicles through use of active (prevention) and passive (protection) measures, plus the safety of passengers, and safety of other road users, such as pedestrians. They are also designing and integrating security enhancements for passengers and goods.

The Architecture & Comfort team design tomorrow’s urban vehicles to meet the challenges of sustainable development and mobility in the city, using technology, new materials, use of hybrid motors and new concepts. They also concentrate on system performance, and vehicle comfort, which involves lighter vehicles, reduced vibrations and noise, improved accessibility and new innovative architecture.

Transport System projects create comprehensive transport solutions, including communication between vehicles, infrastructures and the urban system, as part of the drive for sustainable development. Technologies employed include communication (GSM, GPRS, UMTS, V2V & V2I etc), measurements, data management (traffic, logistics, urban entities etc) and vehicle adaptation. System performance work aims to improve passenger and freight mobility, safety and security, environment and traffic congestion and quality of service. Research is ongoing into itineraries, regulation, communication platforms, supervision, identification of entities and connection between the vehicle and the system.

Modelling & Management of Urban Mobility is the fifth area of focus, and aims to understand the dynamics of passenger and freight mobility in urban and semi-urban areas. They work on the optimisation of the public road network determined by usage, urban process, real-time modelling of journey times, implementation/coherent use of data, urban and lifestyle factors, freight mobility, business travel, and the true cost of transportation.

For further information on LUTB's projects and on logistics in Lyon, contact Emmanuelle Sysoyev, Press Officer at Invest in Lyon, on +33 (0)4 72 40 57 15, or email sysoyev [@] aderly.com.

High Speed Trains Increase Ashford’s Unrivalled Connectivity

Ashford, UK

Home to the new Hitachi maintenance facilities for the high-speed trains operating on High Speed 1, Ashford is increasing its profile in the transport and logistics sector. With Channel ports, the Channel Tunnel, the M20 motorway, Eurostar International Train Station and high-speed train services to central London (37 minutes), Ashford now has unrivaled connectivity in the UK.

Sub-sectors such as rail transport maintenance, manufacture of transport equipment, land transport, and distribution are thriving in Ashford, and with the local growth agenda including a target of creating 28,000 new jobs by 2031, large areas of land are being allocated for commercial and industrial development.

With 16 existing business parks, Ashford has a lot of existing stock to facilitate this market, including sites with railway access, and that are close proximity to motorway junctions on the M20.

With 360 million customers within a days drive, and as a central hub on the South East rail network, Ashford’s location has driven the presence of transport and logistics sector companies. As well as customers, the location also provides a skilled workforce. Ashford has over 4,000 employees within the Transport and communications sector - 9% of the total workforce, compared with only 6% nationally -
and offers flexibility in the local labour market – full-time, part-time, temporary, self-employed and shift workers are widely available within and around the town.

Logistics companies that are present in Ashford include Hitachi, Bombardier, Orbital Marketing Group, Network Rail, Eurostar, Southeastern Railways and Pararail.

For more information on logistics in Ashford, contact Andrew Osborne, Economic Development Manager, on +44 (0)1732 520 733

New Logistics Centre Asserts Calais As “European Crossroad”

Calais, France

Work on a new logistics centre in Calais, catering for the distribution of goods between the UK and mainland Europe, is due to start in 2012. Work on the first phase of the project, involving 50ha, will be completed 2013-2014. The development will cover 160ha in total, and assert Calais as a "European Crossroads".

Calais Premier is set to become one of the first direct gateways for goods distribution between the United Kingdom and continental Europe. This project is the biggest logistics project in northern France, and the chosen site for the development is the industrial zone, Turquerie. This area stretches along the Calais-Dunkirk railway line and is ideally placed between Calais Port and the Channel Tunnel.

The Calais urban agglomeration community, Cap Calaisis, has chosen the Lyon property development company, DCB International, for the construction of Calais Premier. The first phase of the project, a surface area of 50 hectares, will commence in 2012 and is due for completion by 2013-2014. This first site will be dedicated to logistics activities and transport services, and is expected to have 220,000 sq. m. of logistics warehouses, 50,000 sq. m. of industrial parks, and 11,000 sq. m. of commercial property.

According to Didier Caudard-Breille, managing director of DCB International, the first phase of the Calais Premier project will create “thousands of new jobs” and will bring in £176 million worth of investments. By the second phase, this figure could reach £264 million. 

The scale of the Calais Premier project will have a direct effect on the development of the Calais infrastructure. Cap Calaisis is planning to invest £ 1.8 million in creating a railway junction at the site, as well as modernising the whole Calais-Dunkirk railway line. In addition, the Calais 2015 Port Pproject, worth £ 350 million, will extend the port to twice its size, making Calais Europe’s central communications point.

All of the above developments will constitute a direct entrance point to England from Europe. “With this project,” stated the mayor of Calais, Natacha Bouchart, “Calais will assert its strategic position as a European crossroads”.

The economic development agency Calais Promotion economic development agency played a key role in finding investors to take on this project, and in finalising negotiations. Initial contact has already been made with potential clients - in particular, suppliers in the automobile sector and British mass-market suppliers.

For further information on logistics in Calais, contact Jean-Yves Lhomme, Head of Projects at Calais Promotion, on +33 (0)3 21 34 66 83

Malta Succeeds As Centre For ICT

Malta

The island state of Malta has an impressive roll call of multi-nationals with ICT operations based there.

As an island in the Mediterranean Sea, Malta is not the first place you might think of as a centre for a the ICT sector, but this small EU state has successfully developed a notable presence in the global market, and is, “One of the World’s best small economies”, according to the World Market Research Centre.

The ICT industry in Malta is represented by more than 250 companies, employing around 6,000 staff. These include multinationals such as Microsoft, CISCO, Crimsonwing, Vodafone, Siemens, Oracle, and HSBC. The Government of Malta is in strategic alliances with CISCO, HP, Microsoft, IBM, Oracle and SAP.

The story of ICT in Malta has progressed to membership of I-NEC – an elite group of ICT locations. Malta was also chosen by the developers of Dubai’s Internet City for the setting up of SmartCity Malta, an IT village. The island hosts a full range of inbound and outbound call centre services, including e-commerce support and HSBC inbound calls from high value customers in UK and EU.

According company decision-makers, the attractions of Malta to foreign ICT and call centre investors seem to be multifarious – from skills and comparatively low labour and office costs, to its geographical position and languages, Malta seems to have a unique set of selling points.

Benefits of Malta as a centre for IT include its location. It is within easy reach of other European capitals, with direct flights to 37 major centres (flying times 2 ½ hours and less). It is also a point of access for North African and Middle East markets for IT consulting, whilst a favourable business environment comes in part from Malta’s membership of Euro-zone and EU regulatory environment; it has a stable economic, industrial and political environment.

Strong linguistic capabilities, with English as the official language for business and commerce - accent free and with knowledge of colloquialisms – is a great advantage for Malta’s ICT call centres. Italian-, French- and German-speaking personnel are also widely available.

Established as an ICT and call centre hub since the 1990s, Malta has a well-developed telecommunications infrastructure with large bandwidth and digital networks. Internet connections are based on wireless technology such as EDGE and 3.5G as well as wired technology such as DSL, cable and fibre connectivity.

For further information on ICT in Malta, contact Chris Galea, PR & Media Manager at Malta Enterprise, on +356 2542 3289.

£16m Chilled Logistics Investment Complete

Daventry, UK

NFT, is the UK’s leading provider of chilled logistics and has just announced that its £16m investment strategy for its flagship Daventry depot is complete. The Daventry facility is a pioneering depot in terms of its ability to handle deep chill in addition to chilled and ambient. There is no other known, comparable multi-temperature site in the UK.

The final phase of work officially concluded this week, with a £2m depot expansion, which has added a new 120,000 ft sq chill store to the site. “It’s great to have the extension completed on schedule and this development heralds a great time for NFT in terms of our business development activity”, said Dale Fiddy, NFT’s Sales & Marketing Director.

This extension takes NFT Daventry’s capacity to 20,000 pallets within 200,000 sq ft, equating to space for – on average – 40million stock-keeping units (SKU’s) of typical retail pre-packed chilled products. An average of 20 million products go through the Daventry facility per week.

NFT delivers over 120,000 pallets of chilled food each week, traveling to almost every major UK retailer every day. NFT has over 1,600 employees, and runs more than 370 articulated vehicles, covering over 1.4 million kilometers every week.

Since opening in late 2008, the depot has attracted 16 major brands in the industry and NFT’s success in securing new business and growing existing contracts was the main reason behind the need for the expansion, which was commissioned almost immediately after opening, in November 2008.

A cornerstone of NFT’s attraction is its specialist deep chill (at -1°C) facility, which is located in a separate chamber within the facility to maximise picking and transport efficiencies. Dale Fiddy commented, “We pride ourselves on being a full service logistics provider and our investment into the Daventry depot is an excellent showcase of all that we can offer; merging state-of-the-art technology and added-value services with unrivalled knowledge, expertise and infrastructure.”

For further information about logistics in Daventry, contact Jane Holland, at Daventry District Council, on +44 (0)1327 871 100.