The European Shippers' Council Represents...

• The interests of companies trading in Europe as users of freight transport services.
• Companies who ship the vast majority of goods distributed by sea, road, rail, air and inland waterways.
• The 13 national transport user organisations/shippers' councils from 13 countries.
• A number of key European commodity trade associations, such as CEFIC - The European Chemical Industry Council.
• European industry interests as users of freight transport services on a variety of international governmental and non-governmental organisations including: OECD, the Consultative Shipping Group, International Maritime Organisation, the United Nations, WTO and The International Chamber of Commerce.

Contacting the ESC

Contacting the ESC couldn't be easier. Take a look at the contact information page for details on the roles of staff members and their various contact details.

Voice of European Shippers

The ESC maintains an on-going dialogue and is regularly consulted by the European Commission and other Community institutions on transport policy and logistics issues. The ESC also has reciprocal representative arrangements with UNICE (the European Employers Organisation). Another unique aspect of the European Shippers' Council is it is the only multi-modal shippers organisation in Europe.

Cross-Sector Liaison

The ESC is the leading platform for discussions with transport providers. The ESC maintains contact with and holds regular liaisons with the key transport industry representative organisations and their members. These include ECSA, CENSA, ICS, Intertanko, and Intercargo (shipowners), CLECAT, FFE and FIATA (freight forwarders), CER (railways), IRU (road transport), ESPO and FEPORT (ports), UIRR (combined transport) and TEEO (European Express carriers).

Through the Shippers' Tripartite the ESC annually meets with the US National Transportation League, the Canadian Shippers' Council and the shippers' organisations in Asia to develop common strategies to the benefit of shippers in Europe, the Americas and Asia

Priorities

• To promote efficient and competitive freight transport services to enhance the competitiveness of companies conducting business in Europe and overseas transport markets.
• To encourage and persuade transport policy makers to develop open and competitive markets which enhance industrial competitiveness and efficiency.
• To promote industry best practice and key performance indicators to improve the efficiency of industry's transport and logistics supply chains.

Key Activities and Achievements

Liberalisation/De-regulation of the Liner shipping markets

The ESC is the pre-eminent body responsible for efforts to liberalise/de-regulate liner shipping markets. It has achieved this through curtailment of the power of liner conference cartels to impose cartel/monopoly prices on shippers and unfair contracts/contract terms through the pursuit of various complaints with the European Commission.

The ESC is largely responsible for the development of individual and confidential service contract/agreements which have diminished the power of cartel conferences.

Our activities in the Maritime sector have extended to the development of a policy framework for European ports. This has been in response to the European Commission Green Paper on Sea Ports and Maritime Infrastructure.

Development of Best Practices

Today shippers are paying far greater attention to the performance of their transport and logistics supply chains. For many manufacturers supply chain costs, including inventory and investment costs, can represent 20/30 per cent of total company or product costs. Transport and logistics costs are estimated to represent about 30 per cent of total supply chain costs. Because of this magnitude of costs tied up in the supply chain, shippers now require greater reliability and better performance in their transport and logistics supply chain to give them enhanced competitive edge.

In light of this, the European Shippers' Council has taken the lead in assisting shippers to improve the performance of their transport and logistics supply chains by working with transport providers to encourage them to benchmark their services. To date some progress has been made in the air cargo market with the launch in 1998 of the ESC Air Council's key performance indicators and the publication of the ESC code of best practice in the dry bulk shipping sector. Similar exercises are planned with regard to the rail, road and short sea shipping sectors.

It should be stressed that we are only at the very beginning of implementing key performance indicators and best practice in the transport sector. The first task has been to raise the awareness of the need for continuous improvement in the transport sector through best practice techniques, largely through promotion and dissemination of the ESC. The main task is assisting in the implementation of the KPI's and the use of benchmarking in order to measure the competitiveness and performance of one mode of transport over another. The ESC stands ready to play its full part in these developments.

The development of best practices and key performance indicators so far have focussed on the air freight industry, the bulk shipping industry and the European rail freight industry.

Air Freight Industry

Initiated by the UK Air Freight Forum, key performance indicators and best practices based around service levels to the customer (i.e the shippers and forwarders) were adopted and promoted by the European Air Shippers' Council. This was in recognition of the council's pre-eminent position as the voice of European shippers which could take the message more effectively to a European and Global audience.

Bulk Shipping Voluntary Code of Best Practice

The ESC was mindful of the responsibility shippers had towards the safety of ships and their crews moving their bulk products. The ESC with the full support of the European Commission developed a Voluntary Code of Best Practice which European shippers should follow in order to avoid contracting sub-standard and unsafe ships.

For further details see the Voluntary Code of Best Practice.

European Rail Freight Industry

The ESC's principle objective here is to develop KPI's and best practices in order to benchmark railways performance. Therefore ESC has carried out a targeted survey of major shippers in all parts of Europe to establish how freight is moving between the various modes of transport, including road, rail, and short sea shipping. Initial findings involving over ten million tonnes of regular freight flows have already established some clearly definable freight corridors. There is clearly considerable work left to be done before "generic" KPI's and rail freight service level KPI's are developed which will enable European shippers to accurately benchmark the performance of European rail freight services.

Liberailisation of European Railways

The ESC is actively pursuing Liberalisation of European railways to improve the quality of the service provided to rail freight users. The ESC is in the process of developing performance measurements and standards as a means of improving the quality and efficiency of rail freight services.

Annual Flagship Event

The ESC organises an annual Shipper Conference, bringing together Europe's leading users of freight transport services to discuss the principle issues of interest and concern to buyers of freight transport services.