BRITTANY Ferries has reported a shift towards unaccompanied freight shipments on the routes it serves.

The French shipping company says that although freight volumes across the sector were down in January – which it puts down as a consequence of Brexit fears and stockpiling by companies – the percentage of unaccompanied units is already much higher than in previous years.

Brittany Ferries' freight-only ship, Pelican, which links Poole with the Spanish port of Bilbao, was primarily designed for unaccompanied trailers. Currently, it is the best performing ship in the company's fleet.

Simon Wagstaff, Brittany Ferries freight director, said: "Things like negative Covid tests for drivers are certainly helping drive the trend for unaccompanied loads.

"However, there are other financial benefits in going driverless.

"We know of one large haulage operation in Ireland, for example, that has organised reciprocal arrangements with another in Spain, dropping off and picking up trailers for each other.

"That’s a cost-effective way of doing business."

Unaccompanied freight is the transport of wheeled freight without the driver and cab.

One driver drops it off at the port, then another driver collects the trailer at the destination.

Mr Wagstaff said: "Of course, Pelican is an extremely versatile vessel which can take out-of-gauge shipments as well as unaccompanied units.

"It’s this flexibility in our fleet, combined with our ability to accommodate unaccompanied loads throughout our extensive route network, that makes Brittany Ferries an attractive prospect for the year ahead.

"We are pleased too that freight is flowing well through our ports, without the queues that some forecast at the start of the year.”

Portsmouth is Brittany Ferries’ primary freight hub with routes to six ports in Normandy, Brittany and northern Spain.

It imports and exports around 170,000 freight units in a normal year.

The port is well adapted for loading and unloading unaccompanied freight trailers, unlike Dover Straits ports and the Eurotunnel where the focus is on quick ship turnaround times in port and faster flowing driver-accompanied articulated lorries.

In a normal non-Covid year Brittany Ferries carries around 210,000 freight units. Its twelve ships serve Caen, Cherbourg, Le Havre, Saint-Malo and Roscoff in France, Portsmouth, Poole and Plymouth in the UK, Santander and Bilbao in Spain and Cork & Rosslare in Ireland.