Freight transport in Sweden withstood the pandemic

The Swedish freight transport system handled the coronavirus pandemic of 2020-2021 without major disruptions, according to a new report from the Swedish National Road and Transport Research Institute (VTI). The transport system was both robust and flexible and continued relatively unaffected throughout the serious social crisis.

In the report, "Effects of the corona pandemic on the Swedish freight transport system: Analysis of the years 2020 and 2021 ", researchers investigate how shipping and long-distance road transport in particular were affected during the first two years after the COVID-19 outbreak. The supporting evidence consists of a combination of interviews and quantitative analyses of five data sources, two of which contain GPS data from individual ships and trucks.

In overall terms, the study shows that flows of goods in Sweden remained relatively stable, with only small differences in traffic volume during the two-year period in comparison with the previous years of 2017–2019. According to the researchers, this meant that, at macro level, the freight transport system proved to be robust in the face of disruptions caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

"The pandemic was a serious crisis in other areas, not least in healthcare. But for freight transport, that was never the case. If you view the system as a whole, it was relatively unaffected," says Jessica Wehner, researcher and project manager for the study.

However, there were specific issues, and there was some impact at a more detailed level. For example, truck transport to our southern neighbours (Denmark, Germany and Poland) decreased rapidly, by 10-15%, at the start of the pandemic, during weeks 12-17 in 2020. There was also a similar trend in some intermodal terminals and warehouses. The recovery from the initial decline varied greatly by product group, type of truck and destination within Sweden.

The irregular availability of empty containers and the pile-up of certain goods due to delivery delays also caused problems in some ports. However, it is not possible to identify from the statistics any clear reduction in container transport through ports during the pandemic period. And overall, these problems were not severe enough to have any significant impact on aggregated statistics for freight transport.

The researchers argue that the resilience of the transport system as a whole was due to a series of individual measures taken at 'micro level'. These consisted of a series of decisions by companies and individual employees to make freight transport work despite the restrictions and other impacts during the pandemic. In many cases, this involved the use of new digital solutions that facilitated the delivery of goods.

Two examples: instead of customers having to accept and sign for the reception of their orders in person, apps were developed that allowed them to do so digitally and remotely. And instead of truck drivers visiting the harbour office to present their freight documents, they could do so digitally during the pandemic, without physical contact.

"Through process automation, digitalisation and smart delivery methods, most flows ran smoothly and freight transport continued to work," Jessica Wehner concludes, adding that there were smart solutions in all links of the transport chain.

The researchers also compare the coronavirus pandemic to previous crises and ask what lessons can be learned for the future. "In itself, the ability of the freight transport system to withstand the disruptions is positive and can give us courage to face the next crisis, but future disruptions will take a different shape. This makes it difficult to know what will be demanded of the freight transport system when that time comes.

While economic crises often lead to reduced demand for goods and transport, the pandemic instead led to a continued high level of demand in most sectors. Difficulties encountered were mainly in connection with the supply of goods, but only for individual products and not the transport system as a whole.

"The future is unfamiliar to us, and a crisis is often an unknown event that catches us unprepared. This makes it difficult to compare the pandemic with major external disruptions in the future," notes Jessica Wehner.

"At the same time, the pandemic gave us two years of crisis management training. Crises went from something abstract that at best you had a plan for, to something you were perhaps forced to work with every day. That experience is also important."

Text: Mikael Sönne

Translation: CBG

Coronapandemins effekter på det svenska godstransportsystemet - analys av åren 2020 och 2021 (in Swedish) External link.