Company Profile
MDS Transmodal based in Chester, North West England, was established in 1983 and has developed into a unique business, providing strategic and specialist consultancy and modelling services to the world's transport industry, the public sector, financial institutions, property developers and other organisations with interests in transport-related issues. Its consultancy business is underpinned by the development and maintenance of databases (Industry Data), software development (Transport Models) and publications. Its main activities are concentrated in the freight market, including ports, ferries, short and deep-sea shipping, airfreight, intermodal transport, rail and logistics.
MDS Transmodal specialises in providing accurate market assessments, the crucial element of any business analysis; bringing together an appreciation of the economics of transport and an understanding of the commercial mechanisms involved. The company undertakes a wide range of consultancy projects in the UK and internationally. Projects range from trade and traffic forecasting at the national level and for specific routes, or commodities or projects, to feasibility studies for new facilities or services. In the ports sector this entails forecasts from both an econometric and market research point of view, as well as studies of shipping line behaviour.
MDS Transmodal is widely recognised as making a contribution to change and innovation in transport and related sectors.
MDS Transmodal is accustomed to working on ‘high-profile' projects, which may be subject to high levels of public scrutiny. In 2005 and again in 2007 the company was commissioned by the UK Department for Transport to produce 25-year traffic forecasts for the entire GB port industry and carried out a detailed study of the economic value of container transhipment to the UK economy. Both studies were used to inform the consultation process on the review of national port policy and involved at times contentious analyses of future port capacity in Great Britain. The company directors have also appeared as expert witness in a number of major public planning enquiries, both on behalf of the public sector and private sector clients. These, for example, have included the enquiry into the development of a major new container port at Dibden Bay in Southampton and the protection of rail freight paths in the proposed ‘Crossrail' rail link across London. MDS Transmodal produces forecasts of rail freight levels up to 2030 that have been used by among others, the Department for Transport in the 2007 Rail White Paper 'Delivering a Sustainable Railway' and the Network Rail Freight Route Utilisation Strategy (FRUS).