The Ministry of Transport is in talks with a number of large freight operators in an attempt to create a better understanding and basis for information collection in regard to domestic and international freight movements and industry costs.
Data will possibly be added to the ongoing Freight Information Gathering System (FIGS), created in response to a lack of consistently measured, freely available, current data about freight movements.
FIGS – whose fourth report has just been released, marking its 1st birthday – is based on four sets of data including: container movement information provided by New Zealand’s ten container ports, rail freight movements provided by KiwiRail, enhanced trade data provided by Statistics New Zealand and coastal oil deliveries provided by Coastal Oil Logistics.
The MoT says road freight is the next challenge for the system, and a complicated one at that. Air freight will be the final data set and the ministry hopes to begin talks with air freighters in the coming months.
The ministry is also looking at moving from a paper based report, to a report that is supplemented by online capacity. This would allow interested people to manipulate the data and create graphs and tables specific to areas that they are interested in. This change is likely to be implemented during 2013.
The Fourth quarterly report covering the period April – June 2012 tracked:
8,633,540 tonnes of imports and exports
4,401,674 tonnes of rail movements
526,570 tonnes of bulk coastal oil movements
433,433 container loads and discharges from ten ports
Report overview
The container data provides information on the movement of both full and empty containers by port. International container movements (imports, exports and re-exports) and coastal movements (trans-shipments and domestic cargo) can all be analysed, as well as patterns in shipping and ship sizes. The movements can be broken down by container type (20 or 40 ft, dry or refrigerated) and whether the containers are full or empty.
The rail data provides information on bulk and containerised freight movements, both within regions and between regions.
The FIGS team are currently undertaking a survey in order to better understand what aspects of the reports are useful, and where improvements could be made. With FIGS constantly changing, there are endless opportunities for development, and the ministry welcomes all feedback about the reports. The survey can be accessed through the FIGS section on the ministry’s website, and will be running until November 20. The survey only takes a few minutes to complete, and all responses are confidential.
