F-LINE announced that it will conduct a trial of "modal combination" transportation, combining rail and truck, starting in September. The aim is to address the shortage of truck drivers and reduce environmental impact by utilizing rail for joint deliveries in the Hokkaido region.
<Six food manufacturers and F-LINE>
This trial shipment is designed to comprehensively evaluate the practicality of a "modal combination" transportation system. It involves shifting medium-distance trunk line truck transport from the Hokkaido regional joint distribution hub (Sapporo City) to the Obihiro relay hub (Obihiro City) to rail transport, while using trucks for short-distance deliveries from the relay hub to the final destination, allowing for more flexible handling.
The plan aims to stabilize trunk line truck transportation, which is facing concerns about labor shortages, and to reduce CO2 emissions on the Sapporo-Obihiro trunk line by approximately 43% by switching some of the truck transportation to rail.
One of F-LINE's key initiatives is "promoting joint delivery," and in the Hokkaido region, efforts began in April 2016. In October 2023, the storage and delivery bases, which were previously dispersed between Sapporo and Kitahiroshima, were consolidated into a single location within Sapporo, thereby pursuing improved logistics efficiency through the joint operation of storage and delivery.
While approximately 8% of deliveries under the joint distribution system are concentrated in the Sapporo metropolitan area, the remaining 2% are dispersed across various regions, making medium- and long-distance trunk line transportation from Sapporo to relay hubs in each region essential. Currently, this transportation is handled solely by trucks, and the worsening labor shortage in the logistics industry, including truck drivers, makes the risk of "being unable to deliver" an unavoidable problem. Furthermore, from the perspective of reducing CO2 emissions to achieve carbon neutrality, this situation remains a challenge.
Furthermore, the project applied for and received funding from the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism's "FY2025 Modal Shift Promotion Project Subsidy."
