The UK launches a 7 million technology fund to decarbonise freight transport and promote innovation

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Freight delivery across the UK could become more efficient and cleaner now as the Government yesterday launched a £7m Freight Innovation Fund (FIF) which will go to up to 36 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), who then collaborate with leading companies to develop innovations to make freight transport more efficient, resilient and greener.

The fund aims to help SMEs deploy new technologies and ways of working to potentially unlock huge efficiencies and emissions reductions across the sector.

This may include how to better organize containers so they can be more easily crushed for the final part of their journey or how to improve links between rail, sea and road transport, says an official release.

Freight delivery across the UK could become more efficient and cleaner now as the Government yesterday launched a £7m Freight Innovation Fund (FIF) which will benefit up to 36 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which then partner with leading companies to develop innovations to make freight transport more efficient, resilient and greener.

The fund was announced last year as part of the government’s Future of Freight plan, the first intermodal and intergovernmental plan for the UK freight sector.

It addresses the five priorities for the freight sector identified in the plan: to be cost-effective, reliable, resilient, environmentally sustainable and valued by society.

The fund will seek to support ideas and technology by addressing, in particular, three long-standing issues in the freight transport sector: the lack of large-scale cross-sector data collection and sharing across different modes of freight transport which could improve efficiency and coordination; difficulties in intermodal transport and ways to improve the way large shipments are split into smaller shipments, which could reduce emissions and traffic; and improvements in the distribution of goods in ports across different modes of transport which could create knock-on benefits with timing, efficiencies and predictability of the rest of the journey.

The Future of Freight plan sets out a strategy for government and industry to work closely together to deliver a world-class seamless flow of freight across the UK’s roads, rails, seas, skies and canals.

The plan also explains how identifying a national freight network will help better understand the movements of goods and their value to the economy.

Fiber2Fashion News Office (DS)

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