A comparison of rail and sea freight from Europe to Asia

Abstract: Title: A comparison of rail and sea freight from Europe to Asia Authors: Jackie Berg & Louise Pettersson Supervisors: Jan Olhager, Department of Industrial Management and Logistics, Faculty of Engineering, Lund University Malin Gejde, Shipping Manager, Tetra Pak AB Background: Transportation mode selection has become a more strategic part of a well-functioning supply chain as globalization, environmental concerns, and security requirements have become more important. Currently, sea freight is the most used transportation mode for Tetra Pak when transporting goods between Europe and Asia. However, rail transport between Europe and Asia has grown a lot over the past years as a result of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and therefore Tetra Pak would like to explore rail freight to Asia and compare the performance to the current sea freight. Purpose:The purpose of this thesis is to evaluate the performance of rail freight compared to sea freight for Tetra Pak’s packaging machines from Europe to Asia. Research questions: RQ1. How does sea freight from Europe to Asia perform? RQ2. How does rail freight from Europe to Asia perform? RQ3. How do the transportation modes perform compared to each other? Methodology: In order to answer the research questions and fulfil the purpose of this thesis a case study with an abductive approach has been used. The phenomenon that was explored in the case study is transportation from Europe to Asia. Data were collected through a literature review, archival records as well as interviews and was further analyzed through a cross-case analysis to reach the purpose of the thesis. Conclusions: The analysis comparing rail and sea freight in the three aspects, service, economic and environmental, concluded that rail freight has shorter transit time and generally lower environmental impact. The costs are rather similar for the two modes, but the results vary depending on the country. It was therefore found that rail transport can be preferential to certain countries in Asia.