GETTING MORE freight off the road and onto rail and water could significantly reduce road traffic, improve congestion by up to 25% and be better for the environment, according to new research carried out for the Campaign for Better Transport.
The study found that government research had underestimated the potential benefits of the transfer from road to more sustainable transport methods by only looking at national averages across all strategic roads.
Instead, the Campaign for Better Transport research analyzed routes which typically tend to be more congested because of larger volumes of long-distance HGV traffic, particularly to ports. It found that if rail and water freight were increased by 50% on these routes, HGV traffic could fall by 21% and congestion could fall by 15-25%.
