Jon spoke of his pride to be supporting and participating in Transport for the North with other major cities like Leeds and Newcastle.
He said TfGM has a critical role to support the expected growth in the region's population to 3 million people by 2020 by providing more services, supporting HS2, highways and network rail to maximise growth and transport efficiency for the local economies of the region.
Looking forward to the day's events, speakers will cover highways infrastructure, skills and consolidation work. We welcome the case study of Gnewt's Sam Clarke, who will talk about how electric vehicles deliver in London and how this could work in Manchester. Finally I want to express my regards to you, the delegates. You bring together all of those things we need to make Manchester hum and sing.
The next speaker was Kevin Hargreaves - Highways Key Route Network Manager, TfGM
The theme of the implementations for the Key Route Network at TfGM was 'Removal, relief and rationalisation of road, bus and motorway connections'.
He warned the attendees that traffic congestion costs Greater Manchester an estimated £1.3Bn annually.
He signalled significant improvements and investment in roads to bring major routes onto smart technology. Train and bus interchanges will get additional platforms and implementations are expecting to relieve traffic flow and improve access for business.
Implementation is throughout the Greater Manchester area to remove congestion - successes are already visible, e.g. the 10km dual carriageway that is the nearly finished new relief road for the M56 - A6 Hazel Grove Manchester Airport road.
Kevin Hargreaves - Highways Key Route Network Manager, TfGM
Louise Logan from Career Ready spoke about the skills requirements in the Freight and Logistics Sector in Greater Manchester
Louise Logan – Career Ready
Graham Stewart from Arup then spoke on urban consolidation solutions, citing their case-study of Clipper in Regent Street and the need for a single service provider such as Gnewt for the last mile.
Graham Stewart, Arup
Next to speak was Sam Clarke for Gnewt Logistics. He opened with the question TfGM had asked him to talk about.
How alternative vehicles could be encouraged in Manchester
but then altered this question, saying the words how and could needed to be replaced by why and must. He argued that the question really is ...
Why alternative vehicles must be encouraged in Manchester
Air pollution is increasing and is not healthy - I am moving out of London !
In 2015 Gnewt delivered 2.5 million parcels by bullet bike, cargo bike and electric van, the only choice being a Renault Kangoo V200 van.
An example of the success of electric vehicles versus diesel, confirmed by University of Westminster...
in 2015. Gnewt delivered 1.9 million parcels for Hermes. In a similar parcel volume the previous year, delivery by conventional diesel-powered fleets cost 329,000 vehicle kilometers. Gnewt did the same delivery volume but incurring only 139,000 electric vehicle-km making a saving of 71% of NOX reduction.
Clarke said
The service types of our business are driven by the consumer, not just the last mile or first mile services. We now work 24/7, sameday, specialist deliveries as well as click-and-collect. We need to educate our customers; the consumer is driving our service delivery, changing our business and bringing greater complexities to the delivery. We need to educate and legislation is assisting with this.
Planning of business space has opened up the ability to occupy disused areas like garage parking and underground train station areas. Allowing re-use of disused spaces located within a short distance to the user has been critical in making the electric delivery all possible.
Pollution is close to my heart, Manchester must take on electric final-mile solutions. Clients trunk to our consolidation centre where we final mile 100 per cent electric.
Sam Clarke, FIoC, Gnewt
The final speaker of the forum was Helen Smith – Head of Logistics and Environment at TfGM who spoke on air quality, pollution and the impact of road emissions in Greater Manchester...
Technology is reducing emissions but we need more answers
