Living multimodality
Direction of P&O Ferrymasters under fresh leadership. Timm Niebergall, relatively new in his job as CEO in Rotterdam, considers P&O Ferrymasters’ pan-European approach to be a key promise for the future. He’s convinced that “intermodal activities will increase further, despite the recession.”
Timm Niebergall took the reins at P&O Ferrymasters about a year ago. He considers it a privilege that he’s also been the CEO of a new multimodal joint venture with Unifeeder Shortsea since May 2022.
DP World’s maritime sector, under the overall leadership of COO Jesper Kristensen, has grown substantially of late. It has created a strong footprint through acquisitions, including purchasing Unifeeder in mid-2018 as well as P&O Ferrymasters in February 2019.
Niebergall’s pitch is impressive. “We have around 700 employees working at 25 sites located in 20 European countries,” he said, underlining the fact that “we link three key multimodal networks – shortsea, railways and the roads.”
The services cover links to and from the United Kingdom, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Scandinavia, Finland, Central and Eastern Europe, including Romania, and Spain and Italy in the southeast.
Niebergall is convinced that the future is multimodal. The present status, with 30 blocktrains, is already impressive. “40% of our movements are carried out with one leg of the transport by rail. More than 80% of our multimodal volumes include a leg by sea on a ferry or boxship,” he pointed out. He’s ascertained a clear trend in this direction amongst shippers.
“A customer who’s already gone intermodal will stay intermodal.”
Even though P&O Ferrymasters has 2,000 of its own craneable trailers and 10,000 containers in its fleet, it has an asset-light strategy. It has no plans to invest in terminals or warehouses, as it is satisfied with those it has in Rotterdam, Ghent and London Gateway.
Recruitment isn’t as pressing an issue for the group as it is for other companies, given the good loyalty scores it regularly achieves. According to Niebergall, P&O Ferrymasters needs “the right mix of skill and experience.” A human resources development programme is one element amongst others the enterprise is now setting up to strengthen this field.
On the core issue of sustainability P&O Ferrymasters relies on a dual strategy, with its own forwarding department contributing its share to the effort. In addition to training employees to reduce mileage and empty runs to the necessary minimum at the planning stage, the company also promotes the use of alternative fuels. The actual juice used is secondary, Niebergall believes. “It’s not only using fuel A or B that makes the difference, but the sustainable overall reduction of emissions.”
Niebergall is very positive about the outlook for his firm and also the multimodal sector generally. He expects intermodal activities to increase, despite the recession, and is convinced “that we’ll benefit from this strong trend.”