Freight and Logistics

LeighFisher has extensive freight and logistics expertise across a wide spectrum of markets and modes. Our team provides professional consulting services for private and public sector clients, offering an analytical foundation and in-depth industry knowledge based on which we develop operational and strategic recommendations that address our clients’ immediate and long term needs. We have experience of providing advice to rail freight operators and the developers of multimodal freight terminals. This ranges from business case support, rail freight grant applications, development of port related rail freight facilities and assistance at public inquiries into new freight facility developments.

We have developed rail freight costing models to compare the costs of rail with alternative modes (road and short sea). We have also created routing models (with both rail and road networks) to test the competitiveness of rail for either single flows, or scenarios where goods are distributed either nationally or regionally to areas of population or commercial activity. This modeling also provides estimates of the congestion and emissions impacts for the use of different modes, which forms the basis of sustainable development polices, including awarding of freight grant.

We are also very familiar with United Kingdom government policy on rail freight terminals, including those originally developed by the Strategic Rail Authority and subsequently expanded into regional policies. We have a track record of appraising the suitability of potential rail freight terminal sites. Our experience in this area ranges from high level criterion based appraisal (where many options need to be tested) to much more detailed testing (where the number of options has been refined to a more detailed level).