Seeking business opportunities

Adding to the existing ten ports belonging to the corridor, Zeebrugge and North-Sea ports are crucial rail freight players that will add value and “provide new business opportunities”. Their addition is “of strategic importance for the companies wanting to transport their goods safely and efficiently and contributes to the modal shift to rail. Reliable rail freight services, accessible to all, is the way forward and beneficial for both the environment and the economy,” says the RFC NS-B in an announcement.

The port of Zeebrugge has a clear focus on rail freight that occupies around 15 per cent of its overall cargo transport. It has multiple rail freight connections, for instance, with France, Italy, Spain, and Poland. On top of that, last year, it merged in one port company with the port of Antwerp, which already belongs to the RFC NS-B. their goal is to become the biggest container port in Europe, and one can only imagine the possibilities emerging from such a development.

On the other hand, the North-Sea port (Ghent-Terneuzen) has an equally interesting potential. The European Commission had announced since February 2021 that it aimed to include the Ghent-Terneuzen Canal zone in the North Sea-Baltic RFC. The North-Sea port, which already belongs to the Rhine-Alpine and North Sea-Mediterranean RFCs, keeps rail transport on top of the agenda. 7 to 8 million tonnes of cargo enter or leave the port by rail every year. That is 10 per cent of all freight transport between the port and the hinterland, a relatively high share compared to other ports in western Europe. More than 300 trains come and go every week.

East-West bridge

Apart from the ports in the Benelux area, the North Sea-Baltic RFC acquired another station on the Poland-Ukraine border. Medyka, a border crossing and promising terminal will “improve the land bridge between Europe and Asia in the context of the growing traffic between East and West.” “The extension of the corridor to Medyka is another step on the way to improve rail transport to the East and Asian countries, increasing the transport potential of this Corridor and expanding the transport offer, which positively fits in the diversification strategy of PKP PLK” explains RFC NS-B.

Medyka terminal was originally used for the transport of iron ore. Indeed the terminal is part of PKP’s diversification strategy, with PKP Cargo aiming to “turn Medyka into a new Malaszewicze”. However, since rail transport of this commodity was suspended, PKP Cargo purchased two reach stackers to handle containers. Currently, it can handle 3-4 trains per day. One of the main advantages is that the terminal offers transhipment from narrow to standard gauge (1435mm to 1520mm). Moreover, it offers storage possibilities, so the transhipment does not need to be carried out wagon per wagon, as in nearby terminals.

Also read:

• Port of Zeebrugge wants to become a rail freight hub
• North-Sea Baltic corridor now includes North Sea Port
• PKP Cargo wants to turn Medyka into ‘new Malaszewicze’

Interconnectivity

More importantly, though, the new service provides a gateway to more destinations in Scandinavia as well the Baltic states. For instance, from Lübeck cargo will be transported to Trelleborg, Malmö, and Stockholm. From Trelleborg, there is a direct connection with Oslo in Norway. Moreover, there is another block train service that can facilitate the transportation of products to the city of Hallsberg.

The port of Lübeck can also provide direct access to the Finnish ports of Uusikaupunki, Turku, Hanko and Helsinki. Furthermore, Latvia can be reached through the port of Liepaja and Lithuania through the port of Klaipeda. Understandably, Sweden can be among the destinations, but it is not the only one, as the service is versatile and can have different ending points. The central feature that it provides is the direct connection between southern Europe and the North Sea.

Fast and green

As Peter Dannewitz, Head of Sales at Kombiverkehr KG, commented, “it is mainly the speed of the new product that appeals, and complements our northern European transport network”.

Specifically, customers who choose the new service will have the chance to transport their goods with a direct train and coordinated sea services which will significantly reduce transit times. Trips between Italy and Sweden will last 48 hours, while connections to Finland, let’s say, will take up to 72 hours. “These times are virtually impossible to achieve by the trucks on the road”, added Dannewitz.

Due to its remarkable speed features, the product is estimated to attract road traffic to rail. Nevertheless, the service itself showcases some particular ‘green’ characteristics. Rail is inherently a low-emission mode of transport. However, the combination with state-of-the-art ferries, some with electric drive motors, constitutes a development which offers a very well balanced and environmentally friendly transport option.

Efficiency

On top of the features mentioned above, potential customers of the intermodal company will also have the opportunity to book a package of comprehensive services that will include tank containers and trailers both on the rail and sea part of the line. Administrative times will thus get reduced, and no extra effort will be required from the clients. Decreased transit times result from this end-to-end function too, since it makes the whole transport process way more efficient.

Objectives

Greinke also mentioned that the developing project will serve two specific objectives: Firstly, the ‘Black Sea to Baltic’ intermodal corridor will provide an alternative route to westward transportation originating from China. Cargo travelling on trains from, e.g. Xi’an, through transit countries like Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and then Georgia, can be transported in Ukraine using the Black Sea, and respectively get distributed in Europe via the new route.

Moreover, on a smaller scale, Ukrainian and Turkish companies interested in transporting cargo in Central and Western Europe, or Scandinavia, will now have an extra and quicker option when using the Gdansk-Odesa corridor. People in charge of the project are already in negotiations with Turkish ship owners and freight forwarders to explore the possibilities and benefits of a future collaboration.

Estimations show that demand over the new route is not going to be insignificant. Specifically, due to the project, the port of Gdansk could see a growth of its transported volumes during 2021, which might reach the amount of 50 million tones.

Gdansk-Ukraine

Gdansk is currently one of Europe’s fastest-growing ports. Due to its ability to handle all cargo types, the port remained among the highest-ranked for 2020. It also includes the DCT Gdansk terminal, the largest container terminal in Poland, significant for Eurasian traffic and connected with multiple European countries. The latest development will arguably boost its status and central role even more.

Ukraine, on the other hand, is still claiming its role in European transportation, while it attempts to become a transit country for China-EU trade. Following some developments in the first months of 2020, the ‘Black Sea to Baltic’ corridor could certainly serve the country’s intentions and transform it into an important crossroad.
The two parties will also collaborate closely in coordinating the new route’s logistics chains. “We are not only talking about terminals located within the administrative boundaries of Ukrainian ports or the Port of Gdansk, but also land terminals located in the immediate hinterland of the ports and along the route of the Black Sea-Port Gdansk transport corridor,” added Greinke.

Compatibility

Poland is also part of the Three Seas Initiative and of the Trans-Caspian corridor. The new agreement with Ukraine seems to not interrupt the Country’s role in the two coalitions. In contrast, as the Polish Minister for Infrastructure, Andrzej Adamczyk, commented “the cooperation between the Port of Gdansk and the Ukrainian Sea Ports Authority will become the foundation for a common intermodal corridor which fits perfectly with the concept of the Three Seas Initiative and the Trans-Caspian Corridor”.

The sector’s views

The RFCs are a defined set of routes, over which EU member states are required to facilitate international rail freight, primarily by maintaining infrastructure to agreed standards. The framework was agreed in 2010 under EU Rail Freight Regulation 913/2010, commonly known simply as ‘The Regulation’.

The positioning paper, entitled ‘The sector’s views on Rail Freight Corridors’, is published by CER, which claims membership of three-quarters of all rail freight businesses in the EU, EFTA and EU accession countries. It is partnered by the younger EIM, which promotes the interests and views of independent infrastructure managers in Europe, and includes four prominent UK members.

Freight must be shifted to rail

In a joint statement, issued with the paper, both bodies say that the regulation of RFCs has brought a host of positive developments for European rail freight transport, especially for implementing European interoperability. “The RFCs have helped in interconnecting railway infrastructure and implementing a centralised platform for all stakeholders”, they say. The representative bodies further note that by creating a platform for cross-border harmonisation, the RFCs have strengthened the focus on international traffic flows, and helped facilitate a host of other improvements and pilot projects.

However, the joint paper says that there is still fundamental room for improvement. The CEO of Austrian Federal Railways (ÖBB) Andreas Matthä, and the current Chair of CER, was recently quoted expressing his concerns over the ability of RFCs to fulfil their potential, and help meet ambitious Europe-wide targets to shift thirty per cent of all freight to rail by 2030 – a proportion that is higher than even the most successful markets today. “The key to climate protection lies above all in freight transport”, Matthä said. “Freight must be shifted significantly from road to rail in the future.”

Revision prerequisite for competitive modal shift

The positioning paper is published ahead of the upcoming revision of the ten-year old Regulation. Both signatories say revision is an important prerequisite for competitive freight and modal shift.

Within the complex framework of rail regulation on the Continent, they say the existing RFCs should be supported by flexible and enhanced European legislation. “This European legislation should take the market needs of the sector sufficiently into account”, they say. “These solutions and recommendations aim at creating unified quality services for customers and boosting rail freight competitiveness.”

Taking part in the revision process

The paper calls for reform to capacity and timetabling, and for greater involvement from freight operators. Possibly the most radical change sought is an overhaul of the Corridor One-Stop-Shop (C-OSS), a concept intended to give customers a simple means of engaging with the industry. CER and EIM say it does however need to be improved to support all international rail freight. “An enhanced harmonisation of the capacity provided by the infrastructure managers to Rail Freight Corridors is needed, in order to create high-quality capacity”, says the paper. “The cooperation and integration among C-OSSs must be strengthened for better fulfilling the customers’ needs for the coordination of multi-corridor capacity application.”

Both CER and EIM say they warmly welcome the opportunity to take part in the revision process. They say that the solutions and recommendations they make are aimed at creating unified quality services for customers and boosting rail freight competitiveness. The full paper has been published by both bodies on their respective platforms, and has been presented to the EU for consideration and debate.

As of today, train drivers that operate locomotives on the cross-border connections are required to obtain a level B1 language certificate. The UIC considers this as “one of the many examples of a lack of a level playing field between different modes”, as the requirement leads to a lack of competent drivers.

To overcome this barrier, the UIC and RNE launched on 1 December 2019 a joint project named Translate4Rail. It is coordinated by the UIC Freight Department and will last for 24 months, until 30 November 2021. According to the European Commission, the main target of the Translate4Rail project is ” to at least maintain the level of safety, increase the traffic fluidity at borders and to increase the competitiveness of the rail sector.”

Several stages

In order to achieve this, the joint project of the UIC and RNE needs to leapfrog several stages. First, the specifications of the planned tool for communication between a train driver and an infrastructure manager traffic controller should be defined. “This definition must set the functional characteristics of the information tool and of the software of the voice recognition and the transfer of the voice messages to be sent to the traffic controller,” the Shift2Rail JU noted.

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Then, the standard wordings for communication must be defined. Among them are the words and phrases that transmit usual information on the progress of the train (position, stoppings, authorisation of restarting, etc.) and the status of the tracks, as well as exceptional information on any events occurring on his/her own train, a pass-by train, infrastructure (level crossing, signalling, etc.) in case of unusual functioning. Moreover, these wordings must include emergency information in case of incidents or accidents. All this information should be harmonised to allow a sound translation and transmission to the recipient.

Afterwards, the UIC and RNE will start procurement for a tool fulfilling the above-mentioned specifications. The two next stages envisage the tests of the tool across Europe with the participation of the railway undertakings and infrastructure managers and the development of the necessary documentation for the pilot operations. Subsequently, train drivers should take a special training programme for using this tool. Finally, the results of the project must be published and implemented on the European railway network.

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• EU considers single window for rail freight

A symbolic first ‘spade in the ground’ ceremony marked the start of construction of the Infrabel Academy in Brussels, which will be fully operational by the end of 2020.

Around 500 courses will be available to employees at the facility, which is designed to meet the company’s need for well-trained technical professionals. It will also bring together many of Infrabel’s training operations from across the country under one roof.

Simulators

The academy will house various practical rail scenarios, with hardware including dozens of metres of track, signals, overhead lines and simulators, one of which will be a 3D facility. In 2016, a total of 8,132 Infrabel employees followed one or more courses for a total of 108,000 man days. The personnel costs associated with these training programs amounted to 41.5 million Euros, which corresponds to nearly six per cent of the total wage bill.

The dense freight and passenger network managed by Infrabel is one of the busiest in Europe, and sits on three key European Rail Freight Corridors: Rhine-Alpine, North-Sea Mediterranean and North Sea-Baltic.

Belgium’s Flemish Government and regional port partners have launched a new campaign calling for new initiatives that will make the transport of goods – with rail identified as a key element – to and from the European hinterland more smooth and efficient.