DHL Global Forwarding, Freight, the air and sea freight specialist within Deutsche Post DHL and a leading provider of overland freight services in Europe, has extended its route offerings between Asia and Europe for intermodal shipments. The new service now offers two routes that combine rail and road transportation: daily shipments from Shanghai via the trans-Siberian route in the North and a weekly departure from Chengdu through China's West Corridor rail line. Customers will benefit from lower transportation costs, reduced door-to-door lead times of up to 21 days compared to ocean freight, and reduced CO2 emissions.

As a flexible solution, this service offers the option of booking variable capacity " ranging from a single container to a whole train. At the same time, it connects seamlessly with both our groupage network in Europe and DHL Global Forwarding, Freight's Asian network, including markets such as Japan and Korea, explains Amadou Diallo, CEO DHL Freight.

On the trans-Siberian route to and from Shanghai, DHL is first in the industry to offer customers the option of booking the transport capacity they require at a particular point in time. In addition, the multimodal solution reduces CO2 emissions by up to 90 percent compared to air freight. For the most part, overland transportation between Shanghai and the EU border at Małaszewicze (Poland) will be carried out by rail, with last-mile transportation by road.

The second route is optimized for Chengdu-based customers and offers lower transit times of up to eight days compared to the trans-Siberian route and greater cost reduction. It has been launched to meet the rising demand in China, particularly in the economic vibrant region of Chengdu. DHL's once-a-week service departs every Friday to Małaszewicze along China's West Corridor rail line through Kazakhstan.

The increased volumes moved each year on DHL's Asia- or Europe-bound services is further proof of DHL's commitment to providing its customers with cost-effective, environmentally friendly solutions " with increasing global coverage. In addition, it will make a contribution toward achieving the climate protection target which Deutsche Post DHL has set itself: to improve the CO2 efficiency of its own operations and those of its transportation subcontractors by 30 percent by 2020.