The Business

Green alternative for freight traffic

Freight customers want to have reliability and capacity. This is what ForSea offers – round the clock, every day of the year. Our floating bridge has a frequency of services that makes shipments across the Sound simple and flexible. The water route between Helsingborg and Helsingör is simultaneously a green alternative, which saves time and the environment, as well as giving drivers a period of relaxation. The short cut via ForSea can shorten the distance by 40 – 50 kilometres and thus reduce emissions from road haulage.

A strong 2018

During 2018 freight volumes increased by 5.8 per cent compared with the year before. This is thus a continuation of the positive volume development of recent years, which is a reflection of the strong economic situation in ForSea’s markets.

Work continued during the year to simplify checking in at the terminals. Around 65 per cent of all heavy vehicles are pre-booked and can thus utilize ForSea’s automatic check-in, which saves time as well as facilitating invoicing and other administrative handling. The work will proceed in 2019 with the aim that the proportion of automatic check-ins exceeding 70 per cent.

Focus on two markets

Roughly 50 per cent of the freight volume that is handled is transit traffic which comes from – or has a final destination on – the European continent. Other volumes are intended for the Öresund region, principally the Copenhagen area as well as other major consumer markets in Scandinavia. ForSea also handles transit traffic to Norway and Finland. One of the most exciting growth areas is freight between Jutland and Skåne.

The customers are haulage companies and forwarding agents. They operate in a competitive market which is characterised by severe upward pressure on prices and new actors that are gradually taking market shares from the established companies. ForSea primarily competes with the road hauliers who use the Öresund Bridge. The proportion of road haulage that was calculated to cross the Sound in 2018 was 52 per cent. ForSea’s connection accounted for the remaining 48 per cent.

Environmentally compatible freight handling

It is not just shorter distances that make our floating bridge a green alternative. In spring 2018 two ferries were converted to battery power. Emissions of carbon dioxide, sulphur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide and particles were thus cut by about 65 per cent for ferry traffic as a whole.

Sustainability issues are growing in importance throughout the supply chain. ForSea is therefore evaluating the possibilities of contributing environmental key ratios, which the customers’ can use to measure the environmental impact of their shipments. In an extremely competitive sector, it is increasingly difficult for environmental aspects to compete with economic considerations. We nevertheless feel that environmental key ratios are the future in companies where sustainability requirements are now increasing and the right choice of route can make a difference.

”Safety is an obvious part of the sustainability work for us. Every year, ForSea handles hundreds of shipments with hazardous freight on our ferries – handling which is characterised by professionalism and a high level of safety at every stage.”