"Business is coming back, " he adds, "but it is still below last year's levels."
Ulrik Rasmussen, director of groupage activities for DSV Road in the UK, says:
"We believe we've seen the bottom of the market, but there won't be a quick increase."
The market across Europe has been hit 15-20% as a whole, he adds, with France being no exception. Rasmussen predicts a slow increase in volumes towards the end of this year and the start of next, but doesn't see volumes back to 2006-07 levels.
Despite the overall drop in traffic, forwarders are managing to find bright spots.
For RH Freight, groupage volumes from the UK to France are higher this year than last year, with consignments up 3% year-on-year.
"Over all markets, our consignments are fairly steady on the previous year, but weight is down more, " explains Baxter.
"But for France, this is not the case - weight has increased 3%."
France Line Transport, which specialises in UK-France loads, has seen an increase in new accounts from UK exporters wanting to tap into the French market.
The forwarder has been involved in fulland part-load distribution to France for 30 years, working ad hoc rather than operating scheduled services.
Manager Marie Boyer attributes the increase partly to UK government initiatives to encourage economic recovery.
"Some companies that were not doing so well in the UK have looked at export, and France is a good export market, " she explains.
Additionally, companies previously exporting only to Asia are now looking at new markets in western Europe, such as France.
One initiative, Passport to Export, run by UK Trade & Investment for new and inexperienced exporters, has been around for some years, but there has been more government emphasis on exporting for recovery during the past year, says Boyer.
"A few weeks ago, we started working with a company that produces plastic sheeting. It matched funding received and went to France with a list of 10 contacts, and won two contracts. As these were its first contracts in France, it wanted things to go smoothly and came to us rather than a big company, " she says.
Redhead International registered 673 trailer movements from the UK to France between January and August this year, compared with 557 last year.
Operations director Phil Baxter attributes much of the increase to its association with pallet networks in both countries.
Redhead has been a member of Palletforce in the UK and Astre in France for some years and runs a daily groupage service for both networks from its depots in Bradford and Paris. |
