Company details its multimodal road-sea-rail operations at joint event with Port of Barcelona and Grimaldi Group 

XPO, a leading provider of innovative and sustainable end-to-end logistics solutions across Europe, today presented the efficiency benefits of its multimodal services at a briefing led by executives from XPO, the Port of Barcelona and Grimaldi Group.

Multimodal transport is a more efficient and sustainable alternative for long-distance freight transport. XPO uses P400 semi-trailers in combined road, rail and sea corridors to distribute customer products in national and European markets. In the service’s first year, XPO Logistics distributed more than 82,000 tonnes of goods, saving more than 3,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions.

XPO distributes goods via its short sea shipping service on board Grimaldi's ECO ships between the ports of Barcelona and Savona, Italy. The goods that XPO Logistics distributes via its short sea shipping service are specialised in the e-commerce, food, automotive and fertiliser sectors, among others. The company also sends goods daily by rail to Bettembourg (Luxembourg), Poznan (Poland), and Duisburg and Ludwigshafen (Germany) via the Can Tunis and Morrot rail facilities, just a few metres from the port of Barcelona. Since the start of this service last year, XPO has transported more than 36,000 tonnes of goods using these multimodal corridors.

Massimo Marsili, managing director for Southern Europe and Morocco at XPO Logistics, Lluís Salvadó, president of the Port of Barcelona, and Mario Massarotti, managing director of the Grimaldi Group in Spain, participated in the event.

“Our commitment to multimodality has been more than successful and made us a benchmark company in the combination of road, sea and rail transport,” says Massimo Marsili of XPO Logistics. “The use of our P400 semi-trailer has not only improved efficiency in the distribution of our customers' products over long distances, but, very importantly, it has reduced the carbon footprint of our customers’ supply chains, helping them to meet their sustainable development objectives".

Lluís Salvadó, president of the Port of Barcelona, said: "The Port of Barcelona is in a privileged position to facilitate initiatives to decarbonise logistics and port activities. For years we have been developing an intermodal strategy to reduce emissions and negative externalities, thanks to increasingly sustainable rail transport and short sea shipping services. XPO's commitment to multimodality and Grimaldi's commitment to zero-emission vessels in ports show that the companies of the Port Community are fully aligned with this objective".

Mario Massarotti, managing director of Grimaldi Logística in Spain, said: "We are proud that one of the largest logistics companies in the world has confidence in maritime transport and in the Grimaldi Group in particular. The Grimaldi Group has been developing its motorways of the sea between Spain and Italy for more than 20 years, making major investments that allow us to offer a service comparable to road transport, but with a smaller environmental footprint". 

P400 semi-trailers, a key pillar of XPO's sustainability in Spain 

XPO Logistics P400 semi-trailers allow the combined distribution of goods by road, rail and sea from Barcelona to other European countries without the need to change trailers, making the operation more versatile and efficient. This year, the company has added one hundred P400 semi-trailers to its Spanish fleet, each capable of carrying up to 27 tonnes. In addition, this multimodal fleet enables up to 10,000 additional trips per year from Spain and to other countries on the continent. At the European level, XPO has other multimodal routes linking the ports of Santander and Liverpool (announced in June this year); Perpignan - Valenton (south of Paris); Le Boulou - Calais (France), and Novara (Italy) - Duisburg (Germany).  

XPO Logistics is a leading innovative supply chain company in Europe, offering end-to-end logistics solutions that combine full-truck-load, less-than-truck-load, pallet distribution, last-mile delivery, global freight forwarding and warehousing services. The company tailors its solutions to the specific needs of its customers in a wide range of industrial and consumer sectors.