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Great interest in rural freight transportation

Sunday, December 17, 2017

On November 28, CLOSER arranged a seminar on freight transportation in rural areas; interest in the event was widespread. Participants from academia, the business sector, and society at large attended, and the day contained many interesting presentations and discussions.

We have been working with city logistics a long time, but recently we’ve noticed increased interest in issues linked to freight transportation in rural areas, which is why we wanted to assemble the participants concerned to discuss it,” says Sofie Vennersten, Programme Manager for CLOSER.

The presentations covered a broad field, with speakers from the Swedish Transport Administration, the University of Borås, Region Jönköpings län, DHL, DB Schenker, Freelway and Bring.

One of the speakers at the seminar was Petter Huddén, Senior Performance Manager at Bring. Bring participates actively in the forums that promote sustainable societal development with a functional supply of goods across all of Sweden. Rural areas are an important part of the whole in that regard.

Finding sustainable system solutions requires understanding, cooperation, and consensus on diversity solutions,” Petter Huddén says. “For that, we need collective transportation systems where we think big on the local level.”

He concluded by stating that one factor for success after the seminar is now to find a shared constructive route forward, where the focus should be on opportunities and good examples.

Tommy Eriksson and Åslög Kantelius from Region Jönköpings län described well-functioning logistics for freight and personnel as a crucial competitive factor for businesses located in rural areas. If the participants involved cannot contribute to better conditions, rural areas will be depleted of both businesses and inhabitants.

For Region Jönköpings län, conveying the thoughts and opinions of our rural businesses about the challenges they encounter in their operations was self-evident. Well-functioning logistics for freight and personnel is a crucial competitive factor for them,” says Tommy Eriksson, Project Manager for Region Jönköpings län.

CLOSER will now work further on the ideas that came out at the seminar, and welcomes everyone who wishes to take part.

Download the presentations from the workshop here (Swe only)