LIGHTENING THE LOAD - European Commission · by freeing the roads of an annual volume of 20 billion tonne-kilometres1 of freight, the equivalent of more than 700 000 trucks a year

LIGHTENING THE LOADMARCO POLO LEADS THE WAY

Find out more about Marco Polo online at http://ec.europa.eu/marcopolo

This brochure is published by the Executive Agency for Competitiveness and Innovation of the European Commission.

© European Communities, 2009

Design and layout: Tipik s.a./Chili con carne

The responsibility for the content of this publication lies with the authors. It does not necessarily represent the opinion of the European Community. Statements made by Marco Polo project coordinators in this brochure reflect their own views and not necessarily those of the EACI or the European Commission. The EACI is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained herein. The information contained is given for information purposes only and does not legally bind any of the parties involved.

C O N T E N T S

> Introduction – Marco Polo makes a difference 2

> The hardest part is to convince clients –Reefer Express 4

> Wind power takes the train – ENERCON Tri-Modal 5

> Big clients are more demanding – Via Danube 6

> Less paperwork = less cost – Short Sea XML 7

> More ferry space for bigger trucks – CGTK 8

> Bottled water by the trainload – Sirius 1 9

> Bringing Tangiers closer – Marocco Seaways 10

> Marco Polo was indispensable – T-REX 11

> Rail cuts time and raises quality – L.O.G.I.S.T.I.C. 12

> A freight-only weekend ferry – Gulf Stream 13

> Fixed link delivers the goods – Scandinavian Shuttle 14

> e-Learning fil ls skills gap – EWITA 15

> A one-stop shop for north-south freight – ItaloExpress 16

> Baltic shuttle wins back business – BaSS 17

> Innovative containers ease modal shift – FGI System 18

> All aboard for inter-modal learning – GLAD 19

> A mark of quality – The WestMed Bridge 20

> Definitely worth the effort – DZRS 21

> EU support enhances credibility – Ro-Ro Past France 22

> Green customers want modal shift – Euro Reefer Rail Net 23

> Upriver by boat and truck – ETS Elbe 24

L I G H T E N I N G T H E L O A D - M A R C O P O L O L E A D S T H E W A Y

European Executive Agency for Competitiveness and InnovationLightening the load - Marco Polo leads the way Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities2009 - 24 pp. - 21 cm x 29.71 cmISBN 978-92-9202-062-0DOI 10.2826/14295Photos: Cover © EACI; page 2 © EC, © Dan Barnes/ iStockphoto.com; page 3 © Edward Todd/iStockphoto.com, © Digital Vision/Getty images; page 7 © Rafael Ramirez Lee/iStoclphoto.com; page 10 © Darren Deans/iStockphoto.com; page 14 © DG REGIO/EC; page 15 © Johannes Norpoth/iStockphoto.com; page 21 © Duisport/RheinholdThe maps in this brochure are for illustrative purposes only.

M A R C O P O L O M A K E S A D I F F E R E N C E

R O A D I S O F T E N T H E P R E F E R R E D T R A N S P O R T M O D E , B U T R I S I N G R O A D T R A F F I C V O L U M E S M E A N M O R E C O N G E S T I O N , M O R E P O L L U T I O N A N D H I G H E R C O S T S .

Efficient transport is the lifeblood of the European economy. We take fast and cheap delivery from factory to consumer across Europe for granted. Road is often the preferred transport mode, but rising road traffic volumes mean more congestion, more pollution and higher costs.

The Marco Polo programme of the European Union tackles these issues head-on. It helps reduce traffic congestion on Europe’s crowded roads and promotes environment-friendly means of transport. Its strategy is simple: shift as much freight traffic as possible from roads to other modes of transport. While roads are overused, rail, sea and inland waterways often have spare capacity. They also pollute less. A Marco Polo grant can make the difference between launching a modal-shift project or not.

Marco Polo aims at improving the environmental performance of European freight transport, by freeing the roads of an annual volume of 20 billion tonne-kilometres1 of freight, the equivalent of more than 700 000 trucks a year travelling between Paris and Berlin. This translates into substantial environmental, societal and economic benefits.

U S E R S T E L L T H E I R S T O R I E S

This brochure contains a representative sample from the wide spectrum of Marco Polo projects. The information comes from the participants themselves. A manager involved in each project tells in his or her own words of the benefits to be derived from Marco Polo. Many highlight the difficulties, expected and unexpected, which they encountered – and generally overcame.

The projects described in the following pages come from all regions of Europe. New rail and inland waterway projects criss-cross the EU from north to south and east to west. Motorways of the sea provide a way round natural land barriers and congested road corridors, offering capacity along Europe’s Atlantic, Mediterranean and Baltic seaboards.

M A K I N G T H E C A S E

Many projects recognise that even if rail, short-sea shipping and inland waterways offer a greener alternative and can compete with trucks on commercial terms, the case for switching still needs to be made. The business-as-usual mentality among operators is hard to break. Some forwarders accustomed to road transport fear that change might mean unnecessary risk. Dynamic marketing, quality service and close customer care are shown to be vital tools for Marco Polo projects.

Participants also enlist ingenuity and imagina-tion to help their projects succeed. A number use innovative technologies to gain a competi-tive edge, or enhance service quality. These include common IT management systems, GPS for cargo track-and-trace, and new-design containers to facilitate intermodal handling.

Some utilise big European infrastructure projects, such as the Oeresund tunnel and bridge between Denmark and Sweden, to offer door-to-door international transport services. Others have turned the Sunday ban on heavy trucks in several EU countries to their advantage by providing weekend freight services by rail or sea.

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1. ‘tonne-kilometre’ means the transport of a tonne of freight, or its volumetric equivalent, over a distance of one kilometre.

A M A R C O P O L O G R A N T C A N M A K E T H E D I F F E R E N C E B E T W E E N L A U N C H I N G A M O D A L - S H I F T P R O J E C T O R N O T

€ 6 0 M I L L I O N I N G R A N T S A V A I L A B L E P E R Y E A R U N T I L 2 0 1 3

As a number of participants readily admit, they take a commercial risk in launching their projects. Even if the Marco Polo programme offers funding only in the start-up period, they say it helps in two ways. On the one hand, it provides an EU stamp of approval for their project and enhances their green credentials. On the other hand, many of the projects described here would not have got under way, or would have had to be scaled-down, without the benefit of a Marco Polo grant.

M A R C O P O L O I S Y O U R P R O G R A M M E

Marco Polo is user-driven. If your company has a project to transfer freight from road to rail or short-sea shipping routes or inland waterways, you may qualify for a Marco Polo grant. Your project has to involve a cross-border route. The grant is performance-related. In some cases, you only get the full amount if you meet your declared target for the amount of freight shifted from the road to greener transport modes.

You do not have to shift all your traffic off the road. Inter-modal projects, combining road, rail and waterborne transport, are eligible. The concept of transport as a door-to-door service is important. Feeder traffic and final distribu-tion can be handled by road, but road journeys should be kept as short as possible.

In addition to direct modal-shift projects, Marco Polo also funds projects that provide supporting services, including management systems, inte-grated cargo control or common IT platforms to facilitate inter-operability between partners and between modes. Training projects relat-ed to inter-modal transport and logistics also

qualify for grants. And when it comes to road traffic, the cleanest journey is the one that did not take place. This is why Marco Polo actively promotes traffic avoidance, awarding grants to road hauliers and manufacturers who de-vise new practices (like avoiding empty runs or using more efficient packaging) to reduce the need for road transport in the first place.

S TA R T- U P F U N D I N G

The grants provide financial support in the crucial start-up phase of a modal-shift project before it pays its way to viability. Grants cover periods of two to five years. Projects should

be commercially viable once the period of the Marco Polo funding is over. Successful par-ticipation in a Marco Polo project enhances a company’s green credentials. So far more than 400 companies have benefited from funding.

The current programme runs until 2013, with an annual budget for grants of about €60 million. It publishes calls for proposal from potential grant applicants at the beginning of each year on its website (http://ec.europa.eu/marcopolo). Bidders who feel they meet the conditions can apply for a grant.

Responding to its users, Marco Polo has already simplified procedures and lowered thresholds for obtaining a grant. These are part of an ongo-ing series of market-linked enhancements.

Marco Polo is managed by the Executive Agency for Competitiveness and Innovation (EACI) on behalf of the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Energy and Transport.

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Barcelona

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Tunis

Cagliari

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Lamia

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Λευκσίσ - Lefkosia

Dimashq

Yerevan

AjaccioToledo

Valladolid

LogroñoPamplona-Iruña

Vitoria-Gasteiz

SantanderOviedo

Santiago de Compostela

Porto

Coimbra

Lisboa

Évora

Faro

Rabat

Sevilla

Tanger

Mérida

Madrid

Montpellier

Marseille

Monaco

Bessançon

Cardiff

DublinBaile Átha Cliath

Belfast

Edinburgh

BruxellesBrussel

Namur

Düsseldorf

Bremen

Hannover

Amsterdam

MainzWorms Praha

Frankfurt a. M.Wiesbaden

Moskva

Tallinn

HelsinkiHelsingfors

HämeenlinnaTravastehus

TurkuÅbo

MaarianhaminaMariehamn

MikkeliSýt Michel

Luleå

Umeå

Östersund

Härnösand

Sundsvall

Gävle

UppsalaVästerås

StockholmKarlstad

Oslo

Örebro

Falun

Rovaniemi

Reykjavík

Marijampolė

KaunasTauragė

Göteborg

Halmstd

DresdenErfurt

Poznań

Zielona Góra

Wrocław

Opole

KrakówKatowice

Rzeszów

Olsztyn

warszawa

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P A G E

new routeold route

T H E H A R D E S T PA R T I S T O C O N V I N C E C L I E N T S

R e e f e r E x p r e s s

Project name : Reefer Express

Size of Marco Polo grant : €1 714 711

Durat ion of project grant : Ju ly 2007 to July 2010

Lead partner : MacAndrews & Company, London (UK)

Other partner : ABRA Terminales Mar i t ima SA (Spain)

Volume of goods shi f ted of f the road : 857m tonne-k i lometres ( three-year est imate)

Est imated environmental benef i t : €22m (over three years)

Contact : lon [email protected]

A big benefit of Europe’s frontier-free single market is the fast delivery of often perishable products across the conti-nent from producer to consumer. Reefer Express sets out to show that sea routes can compete for this transport market. It is a short-sea container service between the ports of Bilbao in northern Spain, Sheerness in England and Rotterdam in the Netherlands. Among its principal clients are fruit and vegetable producers in southern Spain who supply the British and Dutch retail markets. Before the service was established, this traf-fic all went overland by truck across the Pyr-enees and France to the Netherlands and the UK (via the Calais-Dover ferry service in the latter case).

Refrigerated produce from southern Spain is transported to Bilbao where it is trans-shipped into refrigerated containers and loaded onto a vessel bound for Sheer-ness and Rotterdam. The service, operat-ing on a fixed-day weekly schedule, was launched in July 2007 with one vessel. A second connection was added 12 months later. General cargo, including tyres, tiles, foodstuffs, sanitary products, electronics and domestic appliances, is also carried. The main cargo on southbound journeys consists of paper, beer, foodstuffs, metals

and chemicals. The trans-shipment facility in Bilbao has been extended and improved to handle the more refrigerated cargo.

Geoffrey Smith, managing-director of MacAndrews, the lead company, says “Marco Polo funding has allowed MacAndrews to enter a market previously dominated by trucks and to prove the sea-borne product works as a viable alterna-tive to trucking without outside funding”.

“We have worked with haulage and rail suppliers in Spain to improve door-to-door transit times by coordinating delivery schedules and vessel de-partures. Respecting the integrity of schedules is paramount, especially for just-in-time cargo deliveries.” Although customer support is growing and ton-nages are rising, Smith says “Our biggest obstacle was, and remains, to convince traditional users of overland trucks that a seaborne route can provide a real alternative – commercially, economically, and environmentally”.

“Marco Polo funding has allowed MacAndrews to enter a market previously dominated by trucks and to prove the sea-borne product works as a viable alternative to trucking without outside funding”

G E O F F R E Y S M I T H , M A N A G I N G - D I R E C T O R O F M A C A N D R E W S

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Visby

Rīga

Klaipėda


Utena

Vilnius

AlytusMinsk

Kyïv

Chişinău

Bucureşti

Sofija

Skopje

Tiranë

Sarajevo

Beograd


Trento

Bologna

Firenze

Perugia

L’Aquilla

Roma

Campobasso

NapoliPotenza

Bari

Ancona

Milano

Genova

Torino Casale

Aosta-Aoste

Klagenfurt

Graz

Budapest


Salzburg Eisenstadt

InnsbruckBern

Bregenz

München

StuttgartStrasbourg


Rouen

Amiens

Lille

London

Caen

Rennes

Nantes

poitier

Limoges

Bordeaux

Toulouse

Orléans

Dijon


Barcelona

Palma de Mallorca

Valencia

Zaragora

Murcia

Alger

Tunis

Cagliari

Palermo

Valletta

Catanzaro


Lamia

Patrai

Tripolis

Irakleion

Ermoupolis

ΑθήναιAthinai

Kozani

Thessaloniki

Komotini

Mytulini

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Beyrouth


Dimashq

Yerevan

AjaccioToledo

Valladolid


Vitoria-Gasteiz

SantanderOviedo


Porto

Coimbra

Lisboa

Évora

Faro

Rabat

Sevilla

Tanger

Mérida

Madrid

Montpellier

Marseille

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Cardiff


Belfast

Edinburgh

BruxellesBrussel

Namur

Düsseldorf

Bremen

Hannover

Amsterdam

MainzWorms Praha


Moskva

Tallinn

HelsinkiHelsingfors


TurkuÅbo


MikkeliSýt Michel

Luleå

Umeå

Östersund

Härnösand

Sundsvall

Gävle

UppsalaVästerås

StockholmKarlstad

Oslo

Örebro

Falun

Rovaniemi

Reykjavík

Marijampolė

KaunasTauragė

Göteborg

Halmstd

DresdenErfurt

Poznań

Zielona Góra

Wrocław

Opole

KrakówKatowice

Rzeszów

Olsztyn

warszawa

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OuluUleåborg

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VeneziaPadova

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Modal shift

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P A G E

new routeold route

Project name : ENERCON Tr i -Modal


Durat ion of project grant : Ju ly 2009 to June 2012

Lead partner : ENERCON, Aur ich (Germany)

Other partner : ENEOP 3 Desenvolv imento de Pro jecto Industr ia l (Portugal )

Volume of goods shi f ted of f the road : 663m m tonne-k i lometres ( three-year est imate)

Est imated environmental benef i t : 13 .6m (over three years)

Contact : ursula [email protected]

Marco Polo can make things happen. That at least is the experience of German wind turbine manufacturer, ENERCON. “As soon as it was announced that we had received Marco Polo funding, this had a positive effect on our partners,” says Ursula Vogt, Assistant to ENERCON’s Managing Director. “In Portugal, for example, the local government began pushing the construction of a new railway line to our Portuguese production site. Other partners and governments are also more aware of our activities, and there has been positive feedback from all sides to our objective of shifting freight from road to rail and ship.”

The project involves using rail and ship to move components and parts from Germany to Viana do Castelo in Portugal, as well as to installation sites throughout Europe. Smaller parts go in con-tainers. The novelty is that ENERCON is using rail for over-size ship-ments, i.e. rotor blades, the electrical equipment modules and tower sec-tions of wind turbines. “Some people have had reservations about using rail for this, but participating in Marco Polo means it is taken more seri-ously. It adds prestige to our plans and helps us convince our partners to coop-erate with us.”

As a high-technology company in the field of renewable energy, ENERCON feels it is natural that it should take a lead in promoting sustainable transport, but the project is also being driven by practicali-ties. “We, like others,” Vogt notes, “are encountering increasing resistance from local, regional and national authorities to moving exceptional loads by road. This translates into extended lead times and increased administrative costs.”

However, ENERCON is confident that its modal shift is justified on its merits. “European energy policy and the cur-rent discussion of escape routes from the latest climate change scenarios can only increase the trend toward more modal shift, so we are confident of long-term economic benefits,” Vogt concludes.

W I N D P O W E R TA K E S T H E T R A I N

E N E R C O N Tr i - M o d a l

“European energy policy and the current discussion of escape routes from the latest climate change scenarios can only increase the trend toward more modal shift, so we are confident of long-term economic benefits”

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BerlinPotsdam

Magdeburg

SchwerinHamburg

Kiel

MalmöKøbenhavn

Karlskrona

Kalmar

Växjö

Jönköping

LinköpingNyköping

Visby

Rīga

Klaipėda


Utena

Vilnius

AlytusMinsk

Kyïv

Chişinău

Bucureşti

Sofija

Skopje

Tiranë

Sarajevo

Beograd


Trento

Bologna

Firenze

Perugia

L’Aquilla

Roma

Campobasso

NapoliPotenza

Bari

Ancona

Milano

Genova

Torino Casale

Aosta-Aoste

Klagenfurt

Graz

Budapest


Salzburg Eisenstadt

InnsbruckBern

Bregenz

München

StuttgartStrasbourg


Rouen

Amiens

Lille

London

Caen

Rennes

Nantes

poitier

Limoges

Bordeaux

Toulouse

Orléans

Dijon


Barcelona

Palma de Mallorca

Valencia

Zaragora

Murcia

Alger

Tunis

Cagliari

Palermo

Valletta

Catanzaro


Lamia

Patrai

Tripolis

Irakleion

Ermoupolis

ΑθήναιAthinai

Kozani

Thessaloniki

Komotini

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Dimashq

Yerevan

AjaccioToledo

Valladolid


Vitoria-Gasteiz

SantanderOviedo


Porto

Coimbra

Lisboa

Évora

Faro

Rabat

Sevilla

Tanger

Mérida

Madrid

Montpellier

Marseille

Monaco

Bessançon

Cardiff


Belfast

Edinburgh

BruxellesBrussel

Namur

Düsseldorf

Bremen

Hannover

Amsterdam

MainzWorms Praha


Moskva

Tallinn

HelsinkiHelsingfors


TurkuÅbo


MikkeliSýt Michel

Luleå

Umeå

Östersund

Härnösand

Sundsvall

Gävle

UppsalaVästerås

StockholmKarlstad

Oslo

Örebro

Falun

Rovaniemi

Reykjavík

Marijampolė

KaunasTauragė

Göteborg

Halmstd

DresdenErfurt

Poznań

Zielona Góra

Wrocław

Opole

KrakówKatowice

Rzeszów

Olsztyn

warszawa

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Project name : V ia Danube


Durat ion of project grant : June 2008 to May 2011

Lead partner : In tershipping Ltd , Burgas (Bulgar ia)

Other partner : In tershipping Romania SRL (Romania)


Est imated environmental benef i t : €13 .4m (over three years)

Contact : d [email protected]

“We are successfully managing a riv-er-borne freight service that is trusted by our clients and is seen as a quality alternative to road transport throughout Europe”. This is how Dimitar Ivanov, who manages the project at Intershipping of Bulgaria, described Via Danube after its first year of operation. The project aims to upgrade the Danube as a freight corridor through the heart of Europe, stretching from northern France via Germany to the Black Sea. It seeks to make current road routes from Maubeuge (France) and Waghäusel (Germany) to Bulgaria and Romania into inter-modal ones via the Danube.

Freight travels by road from Maubeuge and Waghäusel to Passau in Bavaria and is transferred to river barges bound for Vidin in Bulgaria where it is offloaded to continue by road to Sofia and Bucharest. For some return journeys the departure port has been changed to Russe which is more convenient for the Romanian car plants which have started using the Via Danube service, explains Ivanov.

The original Intershipping river fleet of four roll-on/roll-off vessels has increased with the addition of four river-going barges powered by two push-boat units. “We are working with bigger clients”, says Ivanov, “and this is more demand-

ing. A big advantage of our service is its regularity. This way, our clients are always sure of an exact departure date and a very good estimate of when the cargo will arrive at its destination.”

“But a regular service means fixed costs, requiring vessels to sail fully-laden. This has been a challenge for us, particularly as a result of the global economic down-

turn since 2008 and the associated fall in consumer demand.” Ivanov concludes: “We coped with this and many other problems; we came out on top. And we set guidelines for the successful manage-ment of the project for the following two years.”

B I G C L I E N T S A R E M O R E D E M A N D I N G

V i a D a n u b e

“We are successfully managing a river-borne freight service that is trusted by our clients and is seen as a quality alternative to road transport throughout Europe”

D I M I T A R I V A N O V , I N T E R S H I P P I N G O F B U L G A R I A

Common learning

7

P A G E

Project name : Short Sea XML

Size of Marco Polo grant : €900 000

Durat ion of project grant : September 2006 to September 2008

Lead partner : NorSte l la Foundat ion, Os lo (Norway)

Other partners : 27 f rom eight countr ies – sh ipping companies and shippers , short-sea shipping promot ion bodies , por t author i t ies , s tandardisat ion bodies , technology companies

Contact : ar i ld .haraldsen@norste l la .no

Arild Haraldsen, CEO of the NorStella Foun-dation, explains the benefits of improved data exchange for short-sea shipping.

X M L S TA N D S F O R E X T E N S I B L E M A R K U P L A N G U A G E I N C O M P U T E R P R O G R A M M I N G . W H AT I S T H E L I N K W I T H S H O R T- S E A S H I P P I N G ?

Administrative paperwork accounts for 20-30% of the cost of short-sea shipping, so developing e-solutions is an obvious way to bring down the costs. But it is not just about cost savings. It is a means to an end – moving goods from road to sea by mak-ing short-sea shipping more competitive.

W H O L E D T H E P R O J E C T ?

The Short Sea XML project was spear-headed by NorStella, a non-profit founda-tion for e-business and trade procedures. NorStella is the official Norwegian contact point for all international standardisation activities in the field of electronic business and trade facilitation. Norway is, of course, not a member of the EU, but we were able to take advantage of being from one of the neighbouring countries which has special relations with the EU. We are one of sever-al countries which can benefit from Marco Polo funding in this way.

W H AT W E R E T H E R E S U LT S …

By the time the project was over, some 40 companies were already using XML – for exchanging messages electroni-

cally along the short-sea logistics chain in a single, shared format. Kristiansand in Norway was the first European port to implement Short Sea XML.

… A N D T H E B E N E F I T S ?

The benefits to us were that the project would not have been possible without Marco Polo funding. The benefits were more than financial, however. Through the exposure we obtained, we have become better known and built up ‘Short Sea XML’ as a brand. We have also found synergies we might not otherwise have found with EU-funded research programmes and other Marco Polo projects promoting intermodality.

WOULD YOU RECOMMEND THE MARCO POLO PROGRAMME TO OTHERS?

Definitely; primarily because it takes a practical approach and (in the case of projects like Short Sea XML) has a two-year duration: this means that you have to obtain practical results in a short time-frame. This makes it complementary to the research-oriented projects.

L E S S PA P E R W O R K = L E S S C O S T

S h o r t S e a X M L

“We have also found synergies we might not otherwise have found with EU-funded research programmes and other Marco Polo projects promoting intermodality”

A R I L D H A R A L D S E N , C E O N O R S T E L L A F O U N D A T I O N

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Lublin

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BerlinPotsdam

Magdeburg

SchwerinHamburg

Kiel

MalmöKøbenhavn

Karlskrona

Kalmar

Växjö

Jönköping

LinköpingNyköping

Visby

Rīga

Klaipėda


Utena

Vilnius

AlytusMinsk

Kyïv

Chişinău

Bucureşti

Sofija

Skopje

Tiranë

Sarajevo

Beograd


Trento

Bologna

Firenze

Perugia

L’Aquilla

Roma

Campobasso

NapoliPotenza

Bari

Ancona

Milano

Genova

Torino Casale

Aosta-Aoste

Klagenfurt

Graz

Budapest


Salzburg Eisenstadt

InnsbruckBern

Bregenz

München

StuttgartStrasbourg


Rouen

Amiens

Lille

London

Caen

Rennes

Nantes

poitier

Limoges

Bordeaux

Toulouse

Orléans

Dijon


Barcelona

Palma de Mallorca

Valencia

Zaragora

Murcia

Alger

Tunis

Cagliari

Palermo

Valletta

Catanzaro


Lamia

Patrai

Tripolis

Irakleion

Ermoupolis

ΑθήναιAthinai

Kozani

Thessaloniki

Komotini

Mytulini

ANKARA

Beyrouth


Dimashq

Yerevan

AjaccioToledo

Valladolid


Vitoria-Gasteiz

SantanderOviedo


Porto

Coimbra

Lisboa

Évora

Faro

Rabat

Sevilla

Tanger

Mérida

Madrid

Montpellier

Marseille

Monaco

Bessançon

Cardiff


Belfast

Edinburgh

BruxellesBrussel

Namur

Düsseldorf

Bremen

Hannover

Amsterdam

MainzWorms Praha


Moskva

Tallinn

HelsinkiHelsingfors


TurkuÅbo


MikkeliSýt Michel

Luleå

Umeå

Östersund

Härnösand

Sundsvall

Gävle

UppsalaVästerås

StockholmKarlstad

Oslo

Örebro

Falun

Rovaniemi

Reykjavík

Marijampolė

KaunasTauragė

Göteborg

Halmstd

DresdenErfurt

Poznań

Zielona Góra

Wrocław

Opole

KrakówKatowice

Rzeszów

Olsztyn

warszawa

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OuluUleåborg

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P A G E

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Project name : CGTK – Consol idat ion of Goods Transport over the Kvarken Stra i ts


Durat ion of project grant : January 2004 to December 2006

Lead partner : RG L ine, Vaasa (F in land)

Other partner : Umea Hamn Ab (Sweden)



Contact : bor je . lassfo lk@rgl ine.com

This project provides a full freight serv-ice over the shortest sea crossing be-tween Finland and Sweden from Vaasa to Umea. Before the service started in 2004, large trucks travelling between the two countries often took the overland route round the northern end of the Gulf of Bothnia. This involved a distance of 820 kilometres, compared with 90 kilome-tres and a crossing time of four hours for the Kvarken Straits sea link.

One of the main problems was that the vessels serving the link were too small. “The Marco Polo grant made it possible for us to buy the ship we needed to han-dle more and bigger trucks,” says RG Line CEO Börje Lassfolk, “Without the grant we would have had to buy a smaller vessel.”

“The new vessel had more lane metres for carrying trucks and the gate and freight- deck dimensions allowed for more and larger loads. We doubled the cargo volume during the project period as set out in our project proposal”, says Lass-folk. “With the additional capacity, we were able to market the service more intensively than before.”

Among the problems encountered during the project, Lassfolk lists a paper work-ers’ strike which reduced cargo volumes, and rising fuel prices.

Lassfolk says the paperwork and report-ing requirements involved in projects like his can on occasion be detailed and time-consuming. But he adds: “The policy and objectives behind the Marco Polo programme are very good”.

M O R E F E R R Y S PA C E F O R B I G G E R T R U C K S

C G T K

“The Marco Polo grant made it possible for us to buy the ship we needed to handle more and bigger trucks”

B Ö R J E L A S S F O L K , C E O R G L I N E

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LU X E M B O U R G

Gdańsk

Bydgoszcz

Lublin

Kielce

Szczecin

BerlinPotsdam

Magdeburg

SchwerinHamburg

Kiel

MalmöKøbenhavn

Karlskrona

Kalmar

Växjö

Jönköping

LinköpingNyköping

Visby

Rīga

Klaipėda


Utena

Vilnius

AlytusMinsk

Kyïv

Chişinău

Bucureşti

Sofija

Skopje

Tiranë

Sarajevo

Beograd


Trento

Bologna

Firenze

Perugia

L’Aquilla

Roma

Campobasso

NapoliPotenza

Bari

Ancona

Milano

Genova

Torino Casale

Aosta-Aoste

Klagenfurt

Graz

Budapest


Salzburg Eisenstadt

InnsbruckBern

Bregenz

München

StuttgartStrasbourg


Rouen

Amiens

Lille

London

Caen

Rennes

Nantes

poitier

Limoges

Bordeaux

Toulouse

Orléans

Dijon


Barcelona

Palma de Mallorca

Valencia

Zaragora

Murcia

Alger

Tunis

Cagliari

Palermo

Valletta

Catanzaro


Lamia

Patrai

Tripolis

Irakleion

Ermoupolis

ΑθήναιAthinai

Kozani

Thessaloniki

Komotini

Mytulini

ANKARA

Beyrouth


Dimashq

Yerevan

AjaccioToledo

Valladolid


Vitoria-Gasteiz

SantanderOviedo


Porto

Coimbra

Lisboa

Évora

Faro

Rabat

Sevilla

Tanger

Mérida

Madrid

Montpellier

Marseille

Monaco

Bessançon

Cardiff


Belfast

Edinburgh

BruxellesBrussel

Namur

Düsseldorf

Bremen

Hannover

Amsterdam

MainzWorms Praha


Moskva

Tallinn

HelsinkiHelsingfors


TurkuÅbo


MikkeliSýt Michel

Luleå

Umeå

Östersund

Härnösand

Sundsvall

Gävle

UppsalaVästerås

StockholmKarlstad

Oslo

Örebro

Falun

Rovaniemi

Reykjavík

Marijampolė

KaunasTauragė

Göteborg

Halmstd

DresdenErfurt

Poznań

Zielona Góra

Wrocław

Opole

KrakówKatowice

Rzeszów

Olsztyn

warszawa

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OuluUleåborg

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P A G E

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Project name : S i r ius 1



Lead partner : SA des Eaux Minérales d ’Ev ian (France)

Other partner : Danone Waters Deutschland GmbH (Germany)



Contact : [email protected]

Rail is particularly suited for handing single products that are transported in large quantities like bottled water. With the Sirius 1 project, the French mineral water company, SA des Eaux Minérales d’Evian, is switching to rail for the trans-port of water from its Volvic spring in central France to its German distribution centre at Hockenheim, near Frankfurt – a distance of 711 kilometres. From there, it is distributed to final customers in Germany by road. Trains return from Hockenheim with empty crates. Previously the whole journey in both directions was by road.

The modal shift means that 70% of the average distance from Volvic to final des-tinations in Germany is now covered by rail. The company says that in a full year of operation, the switch is the equiva-lent of taking 10 000 trucks off the road. The energy saved is enough to provide lighting for a city of 320 000 people.

Jean-Marc Dumas, supply chain projects director at Evian, says the project is raising capacity from two trains a week at the end of 2008 to four a week in 2010. Each train carries 1 000 tonnes of water. “Sirius 1 is the first stage of an ambi-tious supply chain re-engineering project. In the 2010-2014 period, we intend to shift to rail all shipments of Volvic and Evian

water to Germany via Hockenheim and a second distribution centre in Duisburg for the north of the country.”

“The switch to rail during Sirius 1 has not affected our ability to maintain a high service level concerning punctuality and content of shipment. In this process, Marco Polo has acted as a catalyst for our own team and those of our partners. Despite the complexity of implement-ing the new network and a commercial context which still favours road over rail, rail transport remains at the heart of the sustainable development strategy of Evian and Volvic”, says Dumas.

B O T T L E D W AT E R B Y T H E T R A I N L O A D

S i r i u s 1

“The switch to rail during Sirius 1 has not affected our ability to maintain a high service level concerning punctuality and content of shipment”

J E A N - M A R C D U M A S , S U P P L Y C H A I N P R O J E C T S D I R E C T O R , E V I A N

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N E D E R L A N D

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D E R A C I J A

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LU X E M B O U R G

Gdańsk

Bydgoszcz

Lublin

Kielce

Szczecin

BerlinPotsdam

Magdeburg

SchwerinHamburg

Kiel

MalmöKøbenhavn

Karlskrona

Kalmar

Växjö

Jönköping

LinköpingNyköping

Visby

Rīga

Klaipėda


Utena

Vilnius

AlytusMinsk

Kyïv

Chişinău

Bucureşti

Sofija

Skopje

Tiranë

Sarajevo

Beograd


Trento

Bologna

Firenze

Perugia

L’Aquilla

Roma

Campobasso

NapoliPotenza

Bari

Ancona

Milano

Genova

Torino Casale

Aosta-Aoste

Klagenfurt

Graz

Budapest


Salzburg Eisenstadt

InnsbruckBern

Bregenz

München

StuttgartStrasbourg


Rouen

Amiens

Lille

London

Caen

Rennes

Nantes

poitier

Limoges

Bordeaux

Toulouse

Orléans

Dijon


Barcelona

Palma de Mallorca

Valencia

Zaragora

Murcia

Alger

Tunis

Cagliari

Palermo

Valletta

Catanzaro


Lamia

Patrai

Tripolis

Irakleion

Ermoupolis

ΑθήναιAthinai

Kozani

Thessaloniki

Komotini

Mytulini

ANKARA

Beyrouth


Dimashq

Yerevan

AjaccioToledo

Valladolid


Vitoria-Gasteiz

SantanderOviedo


Porto

Coimbra

Lisboa

Évora

Faro

Rabat

Sevilla

Tanger

Mérida

Madrid

Montpellier

Marseille

Monaco

Bessançon

Cardiff


Belfast

Edinburgh

BruxellesBrussel

Namur

Düsseldorf

Bremen

Hannover

Amsterdam

MainzWorms Praha


Moskva

Tallinn

HelsinkiHelsingfors


TurkuÅbo


MikkeliSýt Michel

Luleå

Umeå

Östersund

Härnösand

Sundsvall

Gävle

UppsalaVästerås

StockholmKarlstad

Oslo

Örebro

Falun

Rovaniemi

Reykjavík

Marijampolė

KaunasTauragė

Göteborg

Halmstd

DresdenErfurt

Poznań

Zielona Góra

Wrocław

Opole

KrakówKatowice

Rzeszów

Olsztyn

warszawa

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Project name : Marocco Seaways


Durat ion of project grant : December 2006 to December 2009

Lead partner : Grandi Navi Veloci s .p .a . , Genoa ( I ta ly )

Other partners : Agencia Mar i t ima Condeminas (Spain) , F.A. I . Serv ice S.C ( I ta ly )



Contact : f ranco. fabr iz io@gnv. i t

Before Italian shipping line, Grandi Navi Veloci (GNV), launched its Ro/Pax serv-ice from Genoa to Tangiers in Morocco via Barcelona, the goods it now carries by sea took a longer overland route. From Italy, they went by road to Algeciras at the southern tip of Spain before crossing the Mediterranean.

“The new route was the result of analysing the commercial traffic between Italy and Morocco, and between Spain and Morocco, and of surveying operators,” says Franco Fabrizio of GNV. “This revealed a clear opening for a cheaper and faster alternative.”

The service carries goods from the hinter-land of both European ports – stretching as far as the Milan region in the case of It-aly. These are generally consumer goods, but there is also machinery. “And we car-ry raw materials for factories in Morocco, which then ship the finished goods back by the same route,” adds Fabrizio.

The project got off to a difficult start. GNV had hoped to launch the service in Sep-tember 2006, but had underestimated the difficulties of getting the necessary per-mits from the Moroccan authorities. It is unusual for such trips to call at an addi-tional port in Europe before crossing the

Mediterranean rather than going straight to Morocco and back. “This was really beyond our control,” Fabrizio points out, “as we had made all the necessary ap-plications and enlisted the support of the Italian and Spanish authorities, but it took much longer than we felt it needed to.”

As with any new product, it also took time to convince customers that there is a cheaper and better alternative to the way they are used to doing things – even though they might be saving as much as 50% of their costs. “So, the availability of Marco Polo funding made a critical difference to the initial economics of the project,” says Fabrizio. “However, by May 2009 we had exceeded expectations and added a second vessel on the route earlier than we had originally planned.”

B R I N G I N G TA N G I E R S C L O S E R

M a r o c c o S e a w a y s

“The availability of Marco Polo funding made a critical difference to the initial economics of the project”

F R A N C O F A B R I Z I O , G N V

Í S L A N D

S V E R I G E

E E S T I

L A T V I J A

L I E T U V A

D A N M A R K



P O L S K A


A N D O R R A


U N I T E D

K I N G D O M

I R E L A N D

É I R E


S A R D E G N A

B O S N A I


H R V A T S K A

S L O V E N I J A



S U I S S E

F R A N C E


R O M Â N I A

B Â L G A R I J A



T Ü R K I Y E

Κ Υ Π Ρ Ο Σ

Κ Υ Ρ R O S

S O U R I Y A

L I B N A N

I R A Q

I R A N

H A Ï A S T A N

S A K A R T V E L O


N E D E R L A N D

B E L G I Ë

B E L A R U S

U K R A Ï N A

N O R G E

S U O M I

F I N L A N D


D E R A C I J A

B E L G I Q U E

LU X E M B O U R G

Gdańsk

Bydgoszcz

Lublin

Kielce

Szczecin

BerlinPotsdam

Magdeburg

SchwerinHamburg

Kiel

MalmöKøbenhavn

Karlskrona

Kalmar

Växjö

Jönköping

LinköpingNyköping

Visby

Rīga

Klaipėda


Utena

Vilnius

AlytusMinsk

Kyïv

Chişinău

Bucureşti

Sofija

Skopje

Tiranë

Sarajevo

Beograd


Trento

Bologna

Firenze

Perugia

L’Aquilla

Roma

Campobasso

NapoliPotenza

Bari

Ancona

Milano

Genova

Torino Casale

Aosta-Aoste

Klagenfurt

Graz

Budapest


Salzburg Eisenstadt

InnsbruckBern

Bregenz

München

StuttgartStrasbourg


Rouen

Amiens

Lille

London

Caen

Rennes

Nantes

poitier

Limoges

Bordeaux

Toulouse

Orléans

Dijon


Barcelona

Palma de Mallorca

Valencia

Zaragora

Murcia

Alger

Tunis

Cagliari

Palermo

Valletta

Catanzaro


Lamia

Patrai

Tripolis

Irakleion

Ermoupolis

ΑθήναιAthinai

Kozani

Thessaloniki

Komotini

Mytulini

ANKARA

Beyrouth


Dimashq

Yerevan

AjaccioToledo

Valladolid


Vitoria-Gasteiz

SantanderOviedo


Porto

Coimbra

Lisboa

Évora

Faro

Rabat

Sevilla

Tanger

Mérida

Madrid

Montpellier

Marseille

Monaco

Bessançon

Cardiff


Belfast

Edinburgh

BruxellesBrussel

Namur

Düsseldorf

Bremen

Hannover

Amsterdam

MainzWorms Praha


Moskva

Tallinn

HelsinkiHelsingfors


TurkuÅbo


MikkeliSýt Michel

Luleå

Umeå

Östersund

Härnösand

Sundsvall

Gävle

UppsalaVästerås

StockholmKarlstad

Oslo

Örebro

Falun

Rovaniemi

Reykjavík

Marijampolė

KaunasTauragė

Göteborg

Halmstd

DresdenErfurt

Poznań

Zielona Góra

Wrocław

Opole

KrakówKatowice

Rzeszów

Olsztyn

warszawa

Łódż

Rostock

Ventspils

BA

LT

IC

S

EA

GU

LF

OF

BO

TH

NI A

W H I T ES E A


B A R E N T S S E A

B L A C K S E A

A E G E A N

S E A

B A Y

O F

B I S C A Y

T Y R R H E N I A N

S E A

G U L F

O F L I O N S

AD

RI

AT

IC

SE

A

M E D I T E RR

AN

EA

N S E A


AT

LA

NT

IC

O

CE

AN


N O R T H

S E A

C E L T I C S E A

S K A G E R R A K

OuluUleåborg

Vassa

Białystok

Calais

Almería


VeneziaPadova

Worgl

Modal shift

11

P A G E

new routeold route

Project name : T-REX


Durat ion of project grant : September 2006 to September 2009

Lead partner : IFB sa/nv, Brussels (Belg ium)

Other partner : In terconta iner Austr ia GesmbH (Austr ia)



Contact : t .s t ruyf@ifb .be

When times are hard, a Marco Polo grant can make all the difference. T-REX (Trans-Romanian Express) rail freight services between Belgium and Romania are an example. “Without the Marco Polo pro-gramme, we would probably have started the service, but with limited scope – one round trip reserved for one customer at an agreed price, and with a risk of stop-ping if competitive conditions changed drastically,” says Tony Struyf, Interna-tional Business Development Manager at IFB in Belgium. “With Marco Polo, we can offer a regular service not just to our main customer on the route, but also to the market as a whole – and maintain it in difficult times.”

The new service is fast-er than sending goods by road – 42 hours rather than 48 hours, the timings are more reliable and the service is available over the weekend – when Austrian and German roads are closed to trucks. “Goods loaded on the train in Genk, in the hinterland of Antwerp, on Friday evening will be delivered in Bucharest/Sofia on Monday morning. This is ‘mission impossible’ by road,” Struyf points out. IFB estimates that the rail service is taking 11 500 trucks a year off the road – or 225km of trucks head to tail.

Not everything has gone according to plan. IFB had hoped to be operating four round trips a week by September 2008, but stopped at three “when the global economic crisis put a – hopefully tem-porary – stop to our ambitions for this route and for building a much broader intermodal network linking the Benelux and Romania.”

IFB admits it underestimated the competi-tive responses from road freight opera-tors, so “we actually only reached 84% of our modal shift volume targets in the

first year and 59% in the second,” says Struyf. “We nevertheless believe that achieving 65% of our targets on average over the two years of operation is a very good figure.”

M A R C O P O L O W A S I N D I S P E N S A B L E

T- R E X

“With Marco Polo, we can offer a regular service not just to our main customer on the route, but also to the market as a whole – and maintain it in difficult times”

T O N Y S T R U Y F , I N T E R N A T I O N A L B U S I N E S S D E V E L O P M E N T M A N A G E R , I F B B E L G I U M

Í S L A N D

S V E R I G E

E E S T I

L A T V I J A

L I E T U V A

D A N M A R K



P O L S K A


A N D O R R A


U N I T E D

K I N G D O M

I R E L A N D

É I R E


S A R D E G N A

B O S N A I


H R V A T S K A

S L O V E N I J A



S U I S S E

F R A N C E


R O M Â N I A

B Â L G A R I J A



T Ü R K I Y E

Κ Υ Π Ρ Ο Σ

Κ Υ Ρ R O S

S O U R I Y A

L I B N A N

I R A Q

I R A N

H A Ï A S T A N

S A K A R T V E L O


N E D E R L A N D

B E L G I Ë

B E L A R U S

U K R A Ï N A

N O R G E

S U O M I

F I N L A N D


D E R A C I J A

B E L G I Q U E

LU X E M B O U R G

Gdańsk

Bydgoszcz

Lublin

Kielce

Szczecin

BerlinPotsdam

Magdeburg

SchwerinHamburg

Kiel

MalmöKøbenhavn

Karlskrona

Kalmar

Växjö

Jönköping

LinköpingNyköping

Visby

Rīga

Klaipėda


Utena

Vilnius

AlytusMinsk

Kyïv

Chişinău

Bucureşti

Sofija

Skopje

Tiranë

Sarajevo

Beograd


Trento

Bologna

Firenze

Perugia

L’Aquilla

Roma

Campobasso

NapoliPotenza

Bari

Ancona

Milano

Genova

Torino Casale

Aosta-Aoste

Klagenfurt

Graz

Budapest


Salzburg Eisenstadt

InnsbruckBern

Bregenz

München

StuttgartStrasbourg


Rouen

Amiens

Lille

London

Caen

Rennes

Nantes

poitier

Limoges

Bordeaux

Toulouse

Orléans

Dijon


Barcelona

Palma de Mallorca

Valencia

Zaragora

Murcia

Alger

Tunis

Cagliari

Palermo

Valletta

Catanzaro


Lamia

Patrai

Tripolis

Irakleion

Ermoupolis

ΑθήναιAthinai

Kozani

Thessaloniki

Komotini

Mytulini

ANKARA

Beyrouth


Dimashq

Yerevan

AjaccioToledo

Valladolid


Vitoria-Gasteiz

SantanderOviedo


Porto

Coimbra

Lisboa

Évora

Faro

Rabat

Sevilla

Tanger

Mérida

Madrid

Montpellier

Marseille

Monaco

Bessançon

Cardiff


Belfast

Edinburgh

BruxellesBrussel

Namur

Düsseldorf

Bremen

Hannover

Amsterdam

MainzWorms Praha


Moskva

Tallinn

HelsinkiHelsingfors


TurkuÅbo


MikkeliSýt Michel

Luleå

Umeå

Östersund

Härnösand

Sundsvall

Gävle

UppsalaVästerås

StockholmKarlstad

Oslo

Örebro

Falun

Rovaniemi

Reykjavík

Marijampolė

KaunasTauragė

Göteborg

Halmstd

DresdenErfurt

Poznań

Zielona Góra

Wrocław

Opole

KrakówKatowice

Rzeszów

Olsztyn

warszawa

Łódż

Rostock

Ventspils

BA

LT

IC

S

EA

GU

LF

OF

BO

TH

NI A

W H I T ES E A


B A R E N T S S E A

B L A C K S E A

A E G E A N

S E A

B A Y

O F

B I S C A Y

T Y R R H E N I A N

S E A

G U L F

O F L I O N S

AD

RI

AT

IC

SE

A

M E D I T E RR

AN

EA

N S E A


AT

LA

NT

IC

O

CE

AN


N O R T H

S E A

C E L T I C S E A

S K A G E R R A K

OuluUleåborg

Vassa

Białystok

Calais

Almería


VeneziaPadova

Worgl

Modal shift

12

P A G E

new routeold route

Project name : Logist ic Operat ional network for Gas Innovat ive Supply and Transport between I ta ly and Centra l Europe – L .O.G. I .S .T. I .C .


Durat ion of project grant : January 2006 to January 2009

Lead partner : FS Logist ica s .p .a . (ex-Cargo Chemical ) , Mi lan ( I ta ly )

Other partners : Montana Gas GmbH (Germany) , Pr imagaz Centra l Europe GmbH (Austr ia) , Treni ta l ia s .p .a . ( I ta ly )

Volume of goods shi f ted of f the road : 269m tonne-kilometres (three-year estimate)


Contact : f .bombardi@fs logist ica . i t

Are you small but smart? Then Marco Polo could be for you. “The Marco Polo programme is a way for smaller but smart operators to take part in an am-bitious project,” says Furio Bombardi, Sales Manager at FS Logistica in Milan. “Without Marco Polo, I don’t think all the part-ners in our project would have come together.”

The project had two other major benefits: “It shortened the time to break-even point and was an opportunity to introduce new technology to the logistics industry,” by developing and testing a new GPS tracking and tracing system for main-taining control of shipments of hazardous materials over a wide geographic area.

The project took advantage of rising demand for LPG (liquefied petroleum gas) in central and eastern Europe, and falling consumption in Italy at a time when production was rising as a by-product of increased diesel fuel and petrol output. A rail service existed, but was not com-petitive because it was based on single, ad hoc loads. LOGISTIC launched a dedi-cated block train service – 12-14 wagons at a time.

“We not only cut transport time from Italy to hubs in the Czech Republic and Croatia, but offered real-time information on

arrival time – and delays or problems. Our customers can optimise their hu-man and economic resources, and their customers can make plans based on ‘just-in-time’ logistics.”

It was not all plain sailing. Market condi-tions changed in 2007 and 2008 in ways LOGISTIC could not have foreseen, and the project fell short of its targets. “Despite the difficulties, the LPG transport contracts were extended even after the project came to an end, so I am hopeful,” says Bombardi, “not only that the service will continue in the years to come, but that the model can be extended to other dangerous goods in future.”

R A I L C U T S T I M E A N D R A I S E S Q U A L I T Y

L . O . G . I . S . T. I . C .

“The Marco Polo programme is a way for smaller but smart operators to take part in an ambitious project”

F U R I O B O M B A R D I , S A L E S M A N A G E R , F S L O G I S T I C A , M I L A N

Í S L A N D

S V E R I G E

E E S T I

L A T V I J A

L I E T U V A

D A N M A R K



P O L S K A


A N D O R R A


U N I T E D

K I N G D O M

I R E L A N D

É I R E


S A R D E G N A

B O S N A I


H R V A T S K A

S L O V E N I J A



S U I S S E

F R A N C E


R O M Â N I A

B Â L G A R I J A



T Ü R K I Y E

Κ Υ Π Ρ Ο Σ

Κ Υ Ρ R O S

S O U R I Y A

L I B N A N

I R A Q

I R A N

H A Ï A S T A N

S A K A R T V E L O


N E D E R L A N D

B E L G I Ë

B E L A R U S

U K R A Ï N A

N O R G E

S U O M I

F I N L A N D


D E R A C I J A

B E L G I Q U E

LU X E M B O U R G

Gdańsk

Bydgoszcz

Lublin

Kielce

Szczecin

BerlinPotsdam

Magdeburg

SchwerinHamburg

Kiel

MalmöKøbenhavn

Karlskrona

Kalmar

Växjö

Jönköping

LinköpingNyköping

Visby

Rīga

Klaipėda


Utena

Vilnius

AlytusMinsk

Kyïv

Chişinău

Bucureşti

Sofija

Skopje

Tiranë

Sarajevo

Beograd


Trento

Bologna

Firenze

Perugia

L’Aquilla

Roma

Campobasso

NapoliPotenza

Bari

Ancona

Milano

Genova

Torino Casale

Aosta-Aoste

Klagenfurt

Graz

Budapest


Salzburg Eisenstadt

InnsbruckBern

Bregenz

München

StuttgartStrasbourg


Rouen

Amiens

Lille

London

Caen

Rennes

Nantes

poitier

Limoges

Bordeaux

Toulouse

Orléans

Dijon


Barcelona

Palma de Mallorca

Valencia

Zaragora

Murcia

Alger

Tunis

Cagliari

Palermo

Valletta

Catanzaro


Lamia

Patrai

Tripolis

Irakleion

Ermoupolis

ΑθήναιAthinai

Kozani

Thessaloniki

Komotini

Mytulini

ANKARA

Beyrouth


Dimashq

Yerevan

AjaccioToledo

Valladolid


Vitoria-Gasteiz

SantanderOviedo


Porto

Coimbra

Lisboa

Évora

Faro

Rabat

Sevilla

Tanger

Mérida

Madrid

Montpellier

Marseille

Monaco

Bessançon

Cardiff


Belfast

Edinburgh

BruxellesBrussel

Namur

Düsseldorf

Bremen

Hannover

Amsterdam

MainzWorms Praha


Moskva

Tallinn

HelsinkiHelsingfors


TurkuÅbo


MikkeliSýt Michel

Luleå

Umeå

Östersund

Härnösand

Sundsvall

Gävle

UppsalaVästerås

StockholmKarlstad

Oslo

Örebro

Falun

Rovaniemi

Reykjavík

Marijampolė

KaunasTauragė

Göteborg

Halmstd

DresdenErfurt

Poznań

Zielona Góra

Wrocław

Opole

KrakówKatowice

Rzeszów

Olsztyn

warszawa

Łódż

Rostock

Ventspils

BA

LT

IC

S

EA

GU

LF

OF

BO

TH

NI A

W H I T ES E A


B A R E N T S S E A

B L A C K S E A

A E G E A N

S E A

B A Y

O F

B I S C A Y

T Y R R H E N I A N

S E A

G U L F

O F L I O N S

AD

RI

AT

IC

SE

A

M E D I T E RR

AN

EA

N S E A


AT

LA

NT

IC

O

CE

AN


N O R T H

S E A

C E L T I C S E A

S K A G E R R A K

OuluUleåborg

Vassa

Białystok

Calais

Almería


VeneziaPadova

Worgl

Modal shift

13

P A G E

new routeold route

Project name : Gul f Stream


Durat ion of project grant : March 2008 to March 2011

Lead partner : Br i t tany Ferr ies , Roscof f (France)

Other partners : Puerto de Santander (Spain) , Poole Harbour (UK) , Br i t tany Ferr ies (UK) & Br i t tany Ferr ies (Spain)



Contact : f rancois .pot ier@br i t tany-ferr ies . f r

Gulf Stream is a Marco Polo project offering a motorway-of-the-sea alterna-tive for freight traffic between northern Spain and southern England. It has two special features:

> It is a freight-only roll-on/roll-off service. This means that trucks and unaccom-panied trailers do not have to compete for space with tourist vehicles during the holiday season.

> The service operates one return sailing every weekend between the Spanish port of Santander and Poole on the Eng-lish south coast, so as to take advantage of the weekend ban on heavy trucks using the French national road network.

According to Brittany Ferries, which op-erates the service, the door-to-door cost and duration is less than overland transit via France. The main us-ers of the service are transport firms based in Spain and Portugal at the southern end and UK and Irish hauliers at the English end. The service eases congestion at the Franco-Spanish frontier and at the Channel ports.

Francois Potier, R&D manager at Brittany Ferries, says the results of the first phase of the project are encouraging with a ca-pacity utilisation of 75% which is in line

with the project business plan. “Economic conditions force us to remain very atten-tive to customer needs and to be able to propose innovative solutions which help their profitability and their green image”, he says.

“Ingrained habits are sometimes hard to break. We have to convince clients to test for themselves the advantages of the new service,” says Potier. “We show them our commercial operations on the ground. And we try hard to raise awareness among transporters and logistics firms of the cost differentials and productivity gains a direct sea link can provide.”

A F R E I G H T- O N LY W E E K E N D F E R R Y

G u l f S t r e a m

“Economic conditions force us to remain very attentive to customer needs and to be able to propose innovative solutions which help their profitability and their green image”

F R A N C O I S P O T I E R , R & D M A N A G E R , B R I T T A N Y F E R R I E S

Í S L A N D

S V E R I G E

E E S T I

L A T V I J A

L I E T U V A

D A N M A R K



P O L S K A


A N D O R R A


U N I T E D

K I N G D O M

I R E L A N D

É I R E


S A R D E G N A

B O S N A I


H R V A T S K A

S L O V E N I J A



S U I S S E

F R A N C E


R O M Â N I A

B Â L G A R I J A



T Ü R K I Y E

Κ Υ Π Ρ Ο Σ

Κ Υ Ρ R O S

S O U R I Y A

L I B N A N

I R A Q

I R A N

H A Ï A S T A N

S A K A R T V E L O


N E D E R L A N D

B E L G I Ë

B E L A R U S

U K R A Ï N A

N O R G E

S U O M I

F I N L A N D


D E R A C I J A

B E L G I Q U E

LU X E M B O U R G

Gdańsk

Bydgoszcz

Lublin

Kielce

Szczecin

BerlinPotsdam

Magdeburg

SchwerinHamburg

Kiel

MalmöKøbenhavn

Karlskrona

Kalmar

Växjö

Jönköping

LinköpingNyköping

Visby

Rīga

Klaipėda


Utena

Vilnius

AlytusMinsk

Kyïv

Chişinău

Bucureşti

Sofija

Skopje

Tiranë

Sarajevo

Beograd


Trento

Bologna

Firenze

Perugia

L’Aquilla

Roma

Campobasso

NapoliPotenza

Bari

Ancona

Milano

Genova

Torino Casale

Aosta-Aoste

Klagenfurt

Graz

Budapest


Salzburg Eisenstadt

InnsbruckBern

Bregenz

München

StuttgartStrasbourg


Rouen

Amiens

Lille

London

Caen

Rennes

Nantes

poitier

Limoges

Bordeaux

Toulouse

Orléans

Dijon


Barcelona

Palma de Mallorca

Valencia

Zaragora

Murcia

Alger

Tunis

Cagliari

Palermo

Valletta

Catanzaro


Lamia

Patrai

Tripolis

Irakleion

Ermoupolis

ΑθήναιAthinai

Kozani

Thessaloniki

Komotini

Mytulini

ANKARA

Beyrouth


Dimashq

Yerevan

AjaccioToledo

Valladolid


Vitoria-Gasteiz

SantanderOviedo


Porto

Coimbra

Lisboa

Évora

Faro

Rabat

Sevilla

Tanger

Mérida

Madrid

Montpellier

Marseille

Monaco

Bessançon

Cardiff


Belfast

Edinburgh

BruxellesBrussel

Namur

Düsseldorf

Bremen

Hannover

Amsterdam

MainzWorms Praha


Moskva

Tallinn

HelsinkiHelsingfors


TurkuÅbo


MikkeliSýt Michel

Luleå

Umeå

Östersund

Härnösand

Sundsvall

Gävle

UppsalaVästerås

StockholmKarlstad

Oslo

Örebro

Falun

Rovaniemi

Reykjavík

Marijampolė

KaunasTauragė

Göteborg

Halmstd

DresdenErfurt

Poznań

Zielona Góra

Wrocław

Opole

KrakówKatowice

Rzeszów

Olsztyn

warszawa

Łódż

Rostock

Ventspils

BA

LT

IC

S

EA

GU

LF

OF

BO

TH

NI A

W H I T ES E A


B A R E N T S S E A

B L A C K S E A

A E G E A N

S E A

B A Y

O F

B I S C A Y

T Y R R H E N I A N

S E A

G U L F

O F L I O N S

AD

RI

AT

IC

SE

A

M E D I T E RR

AN

EA

N S E A


AT

LA

NT

IC

O

CE

AN


N O R T H

S E A

C E L T I C S E A

S K A G E R R A K

OuluUleåborg

Vassa

Białystok

Calais

Almería


VeneziaPadova

Worgl

Catalyst action

14

P A G E

new routeold route

Project name : Scandinavian Shut t le



Lead partner : UBQ AB of Malmoe, Sweden

Other partners : Van Dieren (Nether lands) & NGIL , Oeresund Logist ic (Sweden)

Volume of goods shi f ted of f the road : 923m tonne-k i lometres ( four-year est imate)

Est imated environmental benef i t : €27 .5m (over four years)

Contact : Sven-Er [email protected]

The Scandinavian Shuttle uses the Oeresund fixed link, one of Europe’s biggest infra-structure projects co-funded by the EU, to help create a viable rail freight corridor be-tween continental Europe and Scandinavia. It targets the central stretch of the corridor – from the Ruhr region of Germany to south-ern and central Sweden via Denmark.

The Scandinavian Shut-tle operates a daily rail service with fixed jour-ney times, providing just-in-time goods deliv-eries in both directions. It uses the Oeresund tunnel and bridge be-tween Copenhagen and Malmoe. Before the Scandinavian Shut-tle, the main option for customers was a combination of truck and ferry services between Germany and Sweden.

The project sets out to provide the rail transit service with the levels of qual-ity and reliability associated with road transport. Each container or trailer has a mobile phone module with a GPS card reporting its position in near-real time to a Reliability Control Centre to facilitate cargo track-and-trace. The train locomo-tive is equipped to cope with the switch between the Danish and Swedish elec-tricity and Automatic Train Control (ATC) systems in the middle of the Oeresund fixed link. The Scandinavian Shuttle is open to any train operator wishing to use it.

UBQ director Sven-Erik Andersson says the different rules and regulations of the national railway authorities in Europe were a major obstacle. “Although traffic volumes are rising and the quality of the service is constantly improving, we have found that rail transport is much harder to handle than more conventional road

transport”, he says. Asked about the ben-efits for UBQ, he says “the project has given us a higher market profile as an environment-friendly company and has raised awareness of environment issues among our staff”.

F I X E D L I N K D E L I V E R S T H E G O O D S

S c a n d i n a v i a n S h u t t l e

“The project has given us a higher market profile as an environment-friendly company and has raised awareness of environment issues among our staff”

S V E N - E R I K A N D E R S S O N , U B Q D I R E C T O R

Common learning

15

P A G E

Project name : EWITA



Lead partner : v ia donau (Österre ichische Wasserstrassen-Gesel lschaf t mbH, V ienna (Austr ia)

Other partners : St icht ing Pro jecten Binnenvaart (Nether lands) , European Intermodal Associat ion (Belg ium) , Forschung- & Entwick lungs-GmbH, Campus Steyr FH OÖ (Austr ia) , Imaginat ion Computer Serv ices (Austr ia) , Promot ie Binnenvaart V laanderen (Belg ium) , Romanian Mar i t ime Tra in ing Centre , CERONAV (Romania) , Regionaal Ople id ingen Centrum Zeeland (Nether lands) , Schi f fahrts-Ver lag Hansa C. Schroedter & Co (Germany)


Project Manager Sabine Piribauer of lead partner via donau shows how train-ing is vital for changing minds and modes on Europe’s great waterways.

W H Y D I D Y O U D E V E L O P T H E E W I TA P R O J E C T A N D I T S E - L E A R N I N G P L AT F O R M S ?

Europe’s inland waterway sector is facing a skills and labour shortage at a critical time. EWITA aims to fill the gap by creating a common European training concept and practical training programmes for intermo-dal inland waterway transport. It covers both the Danube and Rhine corridors.

Spreading knowledge on this highly envi-ronment-friendly and cost-effective mode of transport and making it easily accessi-ble, helps shift traffic from roads to inland waterways in the longer term. EWITA of-fers the latest training concepts and state-of-the-art e-learning platforms for water-borne logistics in Europe. They are tailored in a flexible way to interface with the train-ing needs of future inland shipping opera-tors and interested transport users.

I T T H I S PA R T O F A L O N G E R - T E R M P R O C E S S ?

EWITA stands for European web platforms and training concepts for inter-modal inland waterway transport. It is a direct follow-up to an earlier Marco Polo project eWIT, which ran from December 2003 to

February 2006. The budget for the new project has been more than doubled.

The initial programme developed a Euro-pean concept for training on intermodal inland waterway transport which it then applied to the Danube corridor via an In-land Navigation eLearning System (INeS).

EWITA refines and expands the concept, updates the INeS Danube, and creates a similar platform, INeS RMS, for the Rhine-Meuse-Scheldt corridor. Both platforms are available in English, German, Dutch and/or Romanian.

H O W D I D M A R C O P O L O H E L P ?

We very much liked the Marco Polo focus on operational activities related to the economy and the business sector rather than on research projects. Practical projects with industrial partners can be handled in a less complicated way.

E - L E A R N I N G F I L L S S K I L L S G A P

E W I TA

“We very much liked the Marco Polo focus on operational activities related to the economy and the business sector rather than on research projects”

S A B I N E P I R I B A U E R , P R O J E C T M A N A G E R , V I A D O N A U

Í S L A N D

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E E S T I

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L I E T U V A

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P O L S K A


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S A R D E G N A

B O S N A I


H R V A T S K A

S L O V E N I J A



S U I S S E

F R A N C E


R O M Â N I A

B Â L G A R I J A



T Ü R K I Y E

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L I B N A N

I R A Q

I R A N

H A Ï A S T A N

S A K A R T V E L O


N E D E R L A N D

B E L G I Ë

B E L A R U S

U K R A Ï N A

N O R G E

S U O M I

F I N L A N D


D E R A C I J A

B E L G I Q U E

LU X E M B O U R G

Gdańsk

Bydgoszcz

Lublin

Kielce

Szczecin

BerlinPotsdam

Magdeburg

SchwerinHamburg

Kiel

MalmöKøbenhavn

Karlskrona

Kalmar

Växjö

Jönköping

LinköpingNyköping

Visby

Rīga

Klaipėda


Utena

Vilnius

AlytusMinsk

Kyïv

Chişinău

Bucureşti

Sofija

Skopje

Tiranë

Sarajevo

Beograd


Trento

Bologna

Firenze

Perugia

L’Aquilla

Roma

Campobasso

NapoliPotenza

Bari

Ancona

Milano

Genova

Torino Casale

Aosta-Aoste

Klagenfurt

Graz

Budapest


Salzburg Eisenstadt

InnsbruckBern

Bregenz

München

StuttgartStrasbourg


Rouen

Amiens

Lille

London

Caen

Rennes

Nantes

poitier

Limoges

Bordeaux

Toulouse

Orléans

Dijon


Barcelona

Palma de Mallorca

Valencia

Zaragora

Murcia

Alger

Tunis

Cagliari

Palermo

Valletta

Catanzaro


Lamia

Patrai

Tripolis

Irakleion

Ermoupolis

ΑθήναιAthinai

Kozani

Thessaloniki

Komotini

Mytulini

ANKARA

Beyrouth


Dimashq

Yerevan

AjaccioToledo

Valladolid


Vitoria-Gasteiz

SantanderOviedo


Porto

Coimbra

Lisboa

Évora

Faro

Rabat

Sevilla

Tanger

Mérida

Madrid

Montpellier

Marseille

Monaco

Bessançon

Cardiff


Belfast

Edinburgh

BruxellesBrussel

Namur

Düsseldorf

Bremen

Hannover

Amsterdam

MainzWorms Praha


Moskva

Tallinn

HelsinkiHelsingfors


TurkuÅbo


MikkeliSýt Michel

Luleå

Umeå

Östersund

Härnösand

Sundsvall

Gävle

UppsalaVästerås

StockholmKarlstad

Oslo

Örebro

Falun

Rovaniemi

Reykjavík

Marijampolė

KaunasTauragė

Göteborg

Halmstd

DresdenErfurt

Poznań

Zielona Góra

Wrocław

Opole

KrakówKatowice

Rzeszów

Olsztyn

warszawa

Łódż

Rostock

Ventspils

BA

LT

IC

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EA

GU

LF

OF

BO

TH

NI A

W H I T ES E A


B A R E N T S S E A

B L A C K S E A

A E G E A N

S E A

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OuluUleåborg

Vassa

Białystok

Calais

Almería


VeneziaPadova

Worgl

Catalyst action

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new routeold route

Project name : I ta loExpress


Durat ion of project grant : January 2005-December 2008

Lead partner : TX Logist ik AG, Bad Honnef (Germany)

Other partners : Treni ta l ia s .p .a . ( I ta ly ) , DHL Express (Sweden)

Volume of goods shi f ted of f the road : 1 ,35 b i l l ion tonne-k i lometres ( four-year est imate)


Contact : t . luet t ig@tx logist ik .de

When outside evaluators looked at the ItaloExpress project for the European Commission, they commented positively on the punctuality and reliability of this new rail service from northern Germany to northern Italy. These had previously been major issues on this route. By in-troducing tracked-and-traced intermodal service using its own locomotives and wagons, ItaloExpress has been able to offer change not only in reliability and punctuality, but also in the form of flexibil-ity and transparent pricing.

“We offer a one-stop-shop between freight forwarders. The three-stop-shop, involving operator, rail company and terminal, is a thing of the past,” says Thorsten Lüttig, Divisional Manager at TX Logistik, the lead company and a German private-sector affiliate of the Italian railways. Its partners were the Italian railways and DHL Express Sweden. “The prospect of Marco Polo funding created lever-age in getting all the partners on board,” says Lüttig.

There were early difficulties in finding enough wagons, but between end-2004 and mid-2008, the frequency was in-creased from two to seven trains a week – primarily from Lübeck to Verona in Italy early on, but then regularly from Padborg

in Denmark on the Danish-German border once terminal improvements there were ready. “We are particularly proud,” Lüttig adds, “of having turned what was initially a project into a sustainable product.”

The barriers to a successful new service were economic, technical, operational – and psychological. “We had to overcome the reluctance of competing firms to bun-dle their shipments on the same train, and fears about loss of flexibility compared to the road. Recognising that promoting intermodality means changing mindsets was for us a key part of the project, and it is important to understand that,” Lüttig says.

A O N E - S T O P S H O P F O R N O R T H - S O U T H F R E I G H T

I t a l o E x p r e s s

“We offer a one-stop-shop between freight forwarders. The three-stop-shop, involving operator, rail company and terminal, is a thing of the past”

T H O R S T E N L Ü T T I G , D I V I S I O N A L M A N A G E R , T X L O G I S T I K

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P O L S K A


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S U I S S E

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R O M Â N I A

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L I B N A N

I R A Q

I R A N

H A Ï A S T A N

S A K A R T V E L O


N E D E R L A N D

B E L G I Ë

B E L A R U S

U K R A Ï N A

N O R G E

S U O M I

F I N L A N D


D E R A C I J A

B E L G I Q U E

LU X E M B O U R G

Gdańsk

Bydgoszcz

Lublin

Kielce

Szczecin

BerlinPotsdam

Magdeburg

SchwerinHamburg

Kiel

MalmöKøbenhavn

Karlskrona

Kalmar

Växjö

Jönköping

LinköpingNyköping

Visby

Rīga

Klaipėda


Utena

Vilnius

AlytusMinsk

Kyïv

Chişinău

Bucureşti

Sofija

Skopje

Tiranë

Sarajevo

Beograd


Trento

Bologna

Firenze

Perugia

L’Aquilla

Roma

Campobasso

NapoliPotenza

Bari

Ancona

Milano

Genova

Torino Casale

Aosta-Aoste

Klagenfurt

Graz

Budapest


Salzburg Eisenstadt

InnsbruckBern

Bregenz

München

StuttgartStrasbourg


Rouen

Amiens

Lille

London

Caen

Rennes

Nantes

poitier

Limoges

Bordeaux

Toulouse

Orléans

Dijon


Barcelona

Palma de Mallorca

Valencia

Zaragora

Murcia

Alger

Tunis

Cagliari

Palermo

Valletta

Catanzaro


Lamia

Patrai

Tripolis

Irakleion

Ermoupolis

ΑθήναιAthinai

Kozani

Thessaloniki

Komotini

Mytulini

ANKARA

Beyrouth


Dimashq

Yerevan

AjaccioToledo

Valladolid


Vitoria-Gasteiz

SantanderOviedo


Porto

Coimbra

Lisboa

Évora

Faro

Rabat

Sevilla

Tanger

Mérida

Madrid

Montpellier

Marseille

Monaco

Bessançon

Cardiff


Belfast

Edinburgh

BruxellesBrussel

Namur

Düsseldorf

Bremen

Hannover

Amsterdam

MainzWorms Praha


Moskva

Tallinn

HelsinkiHelsingfors


TurkuÅbo


MikkeliSýt Michel

Luleå

Umeå

Östersund

Härnösand

Sundsvall

Gävle

UppsalaVästerås

StockholmKarlstad

Oslo

Örebro

Falun

Rovaniemi

Reykjavík

Marijampolė

KaunasTauragė

Göteborg

Halmstd

DresdenErfurt

Poznań

Zielona Góra

Wrocław

Opole

KrakówKatowice

Rzeszów

Olsztyn

warszawa

Łódż

Rostock

Ventspils

BA

LT

IC

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EA

GU

LF

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BO

TH

NI A

W H I T ES E A


B A R E N T S S E A

B L A C K S E A

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OuluUleåborg

Vassa

Białystok

Calais

Almería


VeneziaPadova

Worgl

Modal shift

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new routeold route

Project name : Bal t ic Sea Shut t le (BaSS)


Durat ion of project grant : January 2006 to January 2009

Lead partner : Scandl ines Deutschland GmbH, Rostock-Warnemünde (Germany)

Other partners : Hafen-Entwick lungsgesel lschaf t Rostock mbH (Germany) ; Free Port of Ventspi ls (Latv ia)



Contact : gernot . tesch@scandl ines.de

Using short-sea routes for shipping cargo is, of course, desirable on environmental grounds, but at the end of the day it has to make economic sense as well. This is why Scandlines turned to the Marco Polo Programme for short-term support to ad-just to increased competition from road transport for its Baltic freight services after the EU enlargement of 2004.

The aim of BaSS was to increase the share of sea transport in the overall freight traffic between Germany and the Baltic states, and on to Poland and Russia. An existing service be-tween Rostock (Germa-ny) and Liepaja (Latvia) was moved to Ventspils, another Latvian port, and expanded through the deployment of an ad-ditional vessel. This doubled capacity and frequency (from two to four departures per port and per week. Since then, a third ferry has been employed on the route.

“By moving to Ventspils, we were able to offer customers better port infrastruc-ture”, says Gernot Tesch, Deputy Line Manager Sweden/Balticum/Finland for Scandlines, “and to develop this port as a hub for all Scandlines activities in eastern Europe”. At the Rostock end, one of the attractions for this traffic was the ability to transfer not just to rail and road, but to utilise synergies with the existing route

network to/from different destinations in the Baltic Sea area. Tesch says: “progress was fast – in the first nine months, truck and trailer traffic between Rostock and Ventspils doubled and went up by another 35% the following year”

“Without Marco Polo funding to under-write the start-up costs in the early years, I don’t think we would have increased the frequency,” says Tesch. “And we were successful. Traffic did move back to the sea and we met all our Marco Polo

project milestones. In general, the first aim should always be to get rid of the competitive disadvantage of sea traffic compared to land traffic, in order to make support programmes like Marco Polo re-dundant in the long-term.”

B A LT I C S H U T T L E W I N S B A C K B U S I N E S S

B a S S

“Without Marco Polo funding to underwrite the start-up costs in the early years, I don’t think we would have increased the frequency”

G E R N O T T E S C H , D E P U T Y L I N E M A N A G E R S W E D E N / B A L T I C U M / F I N L A N D , S C A N D L I N E S

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S U I S S E

F R A N C E


R O M Â N I A

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T Ü R K I Y E

Κ Υ Π Ρ Ο Σ

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S O U R I Y A

L I B N A N

I R A Q

I R A N

H A Ï A S T A N

S A K A R T V E L O


N E D E R L A N D

B E L G I Ë

B E L A R U S

U K R A Ï N A

N O R G E

S U O M I

F I N L A N D


D E R A C I J A

B E L G I Q U E

LU X E M B O U R G

Gdańsk

Bydgoszcz

Lublin

Kielce

Szczecin

BerlinPotsdam

Magdeburg

SchwerinHamburg

Kiel

MalmöKøbenhavn

Karlskrona

Kalmar

Växjö

Jönköping

LinköpingNyköping

Visby

Rīga

Klaipėda


Utena

Vilnius

AlytusMinsk

Kyïv

Chişinău

Bucureşti

Sofija

Skopje

Tiranë

Sarajevo

Beograd


Trento

Bologna

Firenze

Perugia

L’Aquilla

Roma

Campobasso

NapoliPotenza

Bari

Ancona

Milano

Genova

Torino Casale

Aosta-Aoste

Klagenfurt

Graz

Budapest


Salzburg Eisenstadt

InnsbruckBern

Bregenz

München

StuttgartStrasbourg


Rouen

Amiens

Lille

London

Caen

Rennes

Nantes

poitier

Limoges

Bordeaux

Toulouse

Orléans

Dijon


Barcelona

Palma de Mallorca

Valencia

Zaragora

Murcia

Alger

Tunis

Cagliari

Palermo

Valletta

Catanzaro


Lamia

Patrai

Tripolis

Irakleion

Ermoupolis

ΑθήναιAthinai

Kozani

Thessaloniki

Komotini

Mytulini

ANKARA

Beyrouth


Dimashq

Yerevan

AjaccioToledo

Valladolid


Vitoria-Gasteiz

SantanderOviedo


Porto

Coimbra

Lisboa

Évora

Faro

Rabat

Sevilla

Tanger

Mérida

Madrid

Montpellier

Marseille

Monaco

Bessançon

Cardiff


Belfast

Edinburgh

BruxellesBrussel

Namur

Düsseldorf

Bremen

Hannover

Amsterdam

MainzWorms Praha


Moskva

Tallinn

HelsinkiHelsingfors


TurkuÅbo


MikkeliSýt Michel

Luleå

Umeå

Östersund

Härnösand

Sundsvall

Gävle

UppsalaVästerås

StockholmKarlstad

Oslo

Örebro

Falun

Rovaniemi

Reykjavík

Marijampolė

KaunasTauragė

Göteborg

Halmstd

DresdenErfurt

Poznań

Zielona Góra

Wrocław

Opole

KrakówKatowice

Rzeszów

Olsztyn

warszawa

Łódż

Rostock

Ventspils

BA

LT

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EA

GU

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W H I T ES E A


B A R E N T S S E A

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OuluUleåborg

Vassa

Białystok

Calais

Almería


VeneziaPadova

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new routeold route

Project name : FGI System


Durat ion of project grant : Apr i l 2008 to Apr i l 2013

Lead partner : Lannut t i s .p .a . , Cuneo ( I ta ly )

Other partner : Lannut t i spr l (France)

Volume of goods shi f ted of f the road : 496m tonne-k i lometres ( f ive-year est imate)

Est imated environmental benef i t : €9 .9m (over f ive years)

Contact : f ranco.ghig l ione@lannut t i . i t a lessandra. lannut t i@lanut t i . i t

Production of glass is not evenly distrib-uted across Europe. Broadly speaking, the production plants are in northern Europe, in particular Belgium, France and the Netherlands, and the consum-ers, of course, are everywhere. This cre-ates a need for specialist long-distance transport.

Jumbo sheets of flat glass – 6m x 3.21m – in-tended mainly for the construction and auto-motive industries are normally carried by road in specially designed trailers (inloaders) with hydraulic systems and air bags to cushion them from shocks. The FGI System project is for the first time deploying a modified design of the special inloaders and using cranes to transfer them from the road to flatbed railway wagons.

“This made intermodal transport possi-ble for the first time,” Franco Ghiglione of lead company Lannutti points out. “It also has the added benefit that more weight can be carried per inloader. There are weight restrictions when we ship by road. Between Belgium and Italy, the first route used for the new system, there is a weight gain per inloader of about 25%.”

The intermodality aspect is particularly crucial for Lannutti’s shipments from Bel-

gium to Spain and Portugal. As the Span-ish railway gauge is different from that of France and Belgium, the containers must be transferred to trucks at the Franco-Spanish border. Over the life of the project, Lannutti hopes to shift more than half a million tonnes from road to rail in trans-ports from Belgium to Italy and Spain.

“While all this may sound simple,” Ghiglione adds, “it actually required investment in a new intermodal fleet. We believe the project has good long-term prospects, but the Marco Polo funding was important to us, because it reduces the risk associated with a highly innovative investment and allows us to give a higher technical content to our services.”

I N N O VAT I V E C O N TA I N E R S E A S E M O D A L S H I F T

F G I S y s t e m

“The Marco Polo funding was important to us, because it reduces the risk associated with a highly innovative investment and allows us to give a higher technical content to our services”

F R A N C O G H I G L I O N E , L A N N U T T I

Common learning

19

P A G E

Project name : GLAD – Green Logist ics Act ion & Deployment


Durat ion of project grant : March 2009 to February 2011

Lead partner : Escola Europea de Short Sea Shipping, Barcelona (Spain)

Other partners : Port Author i ty of Barcelona (Spain) , Gr imald i Compagnia d i Navigaz ione and Grandi Navi Veloci ( I ta ly ) , Port Author i t ies of Rome/Laz io and Genoa ( I ta ly ) , Ferrocarr i les de V ia Estrecha-FEVE (Spain)


Eduard Rodés, Director of the Escola Europea de Short Sea Shipping in Barcelona, describes his experience with Marco Polo.

W H AT I S T H E E S C O L A E U R O P E A D E S H O R T S E A S H I P P I N G ?

As the name suggests, we teach short-sea shipping – combining hands-on train-ing and high academic standards. We run courses for students and people working in the industry on board vessels plying the Mediterranean between Barcelona in Spain and Civitavecchia in Italy. We be-lieve this approach makes us unique.

W H AT H A S B E E N T H E R O L E O F T H E M A R C O P O L O P R O G R A M M E ?

Marco Polo first gave us €1m for an initial two-year project which has been com-pleted. We successfully bid for another two-year grant of €1.3m to cover the second phase known as GLAD. The Marco Polo grants met just over one third of our costs initially and almost half the second time. Those are short time spans in terms of what we would like for forward planning purposes, but Marco Polo has neverthe-less been vital for us. We would otherwise not have been able to expand the similar local courses run by the Barcelona Port

Authority into a school with a European dimension. We take students from seven different EU countries.

W H AT D O Y O U T E A C H ?

GLAD provides two courses: Motorways of the Sea Training (MOST) and SURCO, Simple Use Railway Connections. Each four-day course is stand-alone, but they can be combined over a week. During the first two years, we ran three short-sea shipping courses – an introduction to maritime logistics, basic operations and services, and global logistics operations.

W H AT I S D I F F E R E N T N O W F R O M W H E N Y O U S TA R T E D ?

We are emphasising inter-modality much more. We have an additional partner, FEVE, a Spanish railway company, giv-ing us on-train classrooms in addition to

our classrooms at sea. The environmental content of the courses is also greater. We teach students how to measure the true long-term environmental cost of different forms of transport.

A L L A B O A R D F O R I N T E R - M O D A L L E A R N I N G

G L A D

“We teach students how to measure the true long-term environmental cost of different forms of transport”

E D U A R D R O D É S , D I R E C T O R O F T H E E S C O L A E U R O P E A D E S H O R T S E A S H I P P I N G , B A R C E L O N A

Í S L A N D

S V E R I G E

E E S T I

L A T V I J A

L I E T U V A

D A N M A R K



P O L S K A


A N D O R R A


U N I T E D

K I N G D O M

I R E L A N D

É I R E


S A R D E G N A

B O S N A I


H R V A T S K A

S L O V E N I J A



S U I S S E

F R A N C E


R O M Â N I A

B Â L G A R I J A



T Ü R K I Y E

Κ Υ Π Ρ Ο Σ

Κ Υ Ρ R O S

S O U R I Y A

L I B N A N

I R A Q

I R A N

H A Ï A S T A N

S A K A R T V E L O


N E D E R L A N D

B E L G I Ë

B E L A R U S

U K R A Ï N A

N O R G E

S U O M I

F I N L A N D


D E R A C I J A

B E L G I Q U E

LU X E M B O U R G

Gdańsk

Bydgoszcz

Lublin

Kielce

Szczecin

BerlinPotsdam

Magdeburg

SchwerinHamburg

Kiel

MalmöKøbenhavn

Karlskrona

Kalmar

Växjö

Jönköping

LinköpingNyköping

Visby

Rīga

Klaipėda


Utena

Vilnius

AlytusMinsk

Kyïv

Chişinău

Bucureşti

Sofija

Skopje

Tiranë

Sarajevo

Beograd


Trento

Bologna

Firenze

Perugia

L’Aquilla

Roma

Campobasso

NapoliPotenza

Bari

Ancona

Milano

Genova

Torino Casale

Aosta-Aoste

Klagenfurt

Graz

Budapest


Salzburg Eisenstadt

InnsbruckBern

Bregenz

München

StuttgartStrasbourg


Rouen

Amiens

Lille

London

Caen

Rennes

Nantes

poitier

Limoges

Bordeaux

Toulouse

Orléans

Dijon


Barcelona

Palma de Mallorca

Valencia

Zaragora

Murcia

Alger

Tunis

Cagliari

Palermo

Valletta

Catanzaro


Lamia

Patrai

Tripolis

Irakleion

Ermoupolis

ΑθήναιAthinai

Kozani

Thessaloniki

Komotini

Mytulini

ANKARA

Beyrouth


Dimashq

Yerevan

AjaccioToledo

Valladolid


Vitoria-Gasteiz

SantanderOviedo


Porto

Coimbra

Lisboa

Évora

Faro

Rabat

Sevilla

Tanger

Mérida

Madrid

Montpellier

Marseille

Monaco

Bessançon

Cardiff


Belfast

Edinburgh

BruxellesBrussel

Namur

Düsseldorf

Bremen

Hannover

Amsterdam

MainzWorms Praha


Moskva

Tallinn

HelsinkiHelsingfors


TurkuÅbo


MikkeliSýt Michel

Luleå

Umeå

Östersund

Härnösand

Sundsvall

Gävle

UppsalaVästerås

StockholmKarlstad

Oslo

Örebro

Falun

Rovaniemi

Reykjavík

Marijampolė

KaunasTauragė

Göteborg

Halmstd

DresdenErfurt

Poznań

Zielona Góra

Wrocław

Opole

KrakówKatowice

Rzeszów

Olsztyn

warszawa

Łódż

Rostock

Ventspils

BA

LT

IC

S

EA

GU

LF

OF

BO

TH

NI A

W H I T ES E A


B A R E N T S S E A

B L A C K S E A

A E G E A N

S E A

B A Y

O F

B I S C A Y

T Y R R H E N I A N

S E A

G U L F

O F L I O N S

AD

RI

AT

IC

SE

A

M E D I T E RR

AN

EA

N S E A


AT

LA

NT

IC

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CE

AN


N O R T H

S E A

C E L T I C S E A

S K A G E R R A K

OuluUleåborg

Vassa

Białystok

Calais

Almería


VeneziaPadova

Worgl

Modal shift

20

P A G E

new routeold route

Project name : The WestMed Br idge


Durat ion of project grant : Apr i l 2008 to March 2011

Lead partner : At lant ica S.p .A. d i Navigaz ione, Naples ( I ta ly )

Other partner : Gr imald i Logist ica España (Spain)

Volume of goods shi f ted of f the road : 2 .25 b i l l ion tonne-k i lometres ( three-year est imate)


Contact : Kypr ianou.paul@gr imald i .napol i . i t

Why go by road through northern Italy, across southern France and down the Spanish coast to get from Civitavecchia just north of Rome to Barcelona in Spain, when you can go across the Mediterra-nean? Even if the ultimate destination is Lisbon, the new route still makes sense. This was the thinking behind the Marco Polo Eurostars project, which ran from 2004-2006 and launched this route for Ro-Ro transport.

That success gave rise to a succes-sor project: The Westmed Bridge – an improved service with bigger vessels increasing loading capacity for rolling freight (accompanied and unaccom-panied trailers) by 65%. It is over 40% cheaper and one-third faster by sea than by moving the same freight by road.

“We are faster and cheaper, and this is a more reliable service with departures and arrivals on fixed days of the week and at fixed times,” says Paul Kyprianou, External Relations Manager for the Grimaldi Group. “Over the life of the project, we expect the equivalent of 72 585 trucks or trailers to be shifted from road to sea.”

Launching when fuel prices were soar-ing and the world economy was enter-ing a major downturn had an impact.

“We transported 4% fewer trailers in the first year than we had expected,” Kyprianou admits. “Nevertheless, we are optimistic about this route, particularly once further upgrades to road and rail links to the hinterland at either end and planned improvements to port infrastruc-ture are complete.”

Despite short-term setbacks, Kyprianou is enthusiastic about the Marco Polo programme: “The investment cost of new ships to upgrade the service is huge, so the programme has brought us significant financial benefit in the start-up phase. Being awarded Marco Polo funding is also a form of quality mark for our business.”

A M A R K O F Q U A L I T Y

T h e W e s t M e d B r i d g e

“Being awarded Marco Polo funding is also a form of quality mark for our business”

P A U L K Y P R I A N O U , E X T E R N A L R E L A T I O N S M A N A G E R , G R I M A L D I G R O U P

Í S L A N D

S V E R I G E

E E S T I

L A T V I J A

L I E T U V A

D A N M A R K



P O L S K A


A N D O R R A


U N I T E D

K I N G D O M

I R E L A N D

É I R E


S A R D E G N A

B O S N A I


H R V A T S K A

S L O V E N I J A



S U I S S E

F R A N C E


R O M Â N I A

B Â L G A R I J A



T Ü R K I Y E

Κ Υ Π Ρ Ο Σ

Κ Υ Ρ R O S

S O U R I Y A

L I B N A N

I R A Q

I R A N

H A Ï A S T A N

S A K A R T V E L O


N E D E R L A N D

B E L G I Ë

B E L A R U S

U K R A Ï N A

N O R G E

S U O M I

F I N L A N D


D E R A C I J A

B E L G I Q U E

LU X E M B O U R G

Gdańsk

Bydgoszcz

Lublin

Kielce

Szczecin

BerlinPotsdam

Magdeburg

SchwerinHamburg

Kiel

MalmöKøbenhavn

Karlskrona

Kalmar

Växjö

Jönköping

LinköpingNyköping

Visby

Rīga

Klaipėda


Utena

Vilnius

AlytusMinsk

Kyïv

Chişinău

Bucureşti

Sofija

Skopje

Tiranë

Sarajevo

Beograd


Venezia

Trento

Bologna

Firenze

Perugia

L’Aquilla

Roma

Campobasso

NapoliPotenza

Bari

Ancona

Milano

Genova

Torino

Aosta-Aoste

Klagenfurt

Graz

Budapest


Salzburg Eisenstadt

InnsbruckBern

Bregenz

München

StuttgartStrasbourg


Rouen

Amiens

Lille

London

Caen

Rennes

Nantes

poitier

Limoges

Bordeaux

Toulouse

Orléans

Dijon


Barcelona

Palma de Mallorca

Valencia

Zaragora

Murcia

Alger

Tunis

Cagliari

Palermo

Valletta

Catanzaro


Lamia

Patrai

Tripolis

Irakleion

Ermoupolis

ΑθήναιAthinai

Kozani

Thessaloniki

Komotini

Mytulini

ANKARA

Beyrouth


Dimashq

Yerevan

AjaccioToledo

Valladolid


Vitoria-Gasteiz

SantanderOviedo


Porto

Coimbra

Lisboa

Évora

Faro

Rabat

Sevilla

Tanger

Mérida

Madrid

Montpellier

Marseille

Monaco

Bessançon

Cardiff


Belfast

Edinburgh

BruxellesBrussel

Namur

Düsseldorf

Bremen

Hannover

Amsterdam

MainzWorms Praha


Moskva

Tallinn

HelsinkiHelsingfors


TurkuÅbo


MikkeliSýt Michel

Luleå

Umeå

Östersund

Härnösand

Sundsvall

Gävle

UppsalaVästerås

StockholmKarlstad

Oslo

Örebro

Falun

Rovaniemi

Reykjavík

Marijampolė

KaunasTauragė

Göteborg

Halmstd

DresdenErfurt

Poznań

Zielona Góra

Wrocław

Opole

KrakówKatowice

Rzeszów

Olsztyn

warszawa

Łódż

BA

LT

IC

S

EA

GU

LF

OF

BO

TH

NI A

W H I T ES E A


B A R E N T S S E A

B L A C K S E A

A E G E A N

S E A

B A Y

O F

B I S C A Y

T Y R R H E N I A N

S E A

G U L F

O F L I O N S

AD

RI

AT

IC

SE

A

M E D I T E RR

AN

EA

N S E A


AT

LA

NT

IC

O

CE

AN


N O R T H

S E A

C E L T I C S E A

S K A G E R R A K

OuluUleåborg

Vassa

Białystok

Modal shift

21

P A G E

new routeold route

Project name : DZRS – Duisburg-Zeebrugge Rai l Shut t le


Durat ion of project grant : October 2006 to October 2009

Lead partner : Duisport Agency GmbH, Duisburg (Germany)

Other partners : Port Connect NV (Belg ium) , CMA/CGM (Belg ium) , IFB Inter Ferry Boat (Belg ium)



Contact : norbert . rekers@duisport .de

The procedures associated with Marco Polo funding can sometimes appear too much of a challenge for some companies. Complaints about the Brussels bureauc-racy are not uncommon. But Norbert Rekers, Director of Sales for the Duisport Agency in Germany says things have got better: “We would reapply. On the one hand, the hurdles to getting the money have been reduced; on the other hand, the amount of money has been in-creased. All in all, that makes the benefit very worthwhile for new intermodal projects.” In the case of the DZRS (Duisburg-Zeebrugge Rail Shuttle) project, the benefit covers just under half the losses anticipated in the first three years of operation. The project is taking the equivalent of more than 25 000 standard containers of cargo off the roads each year.

DZRS provides a train link between the world’s largest inland container port – Duisburg (Duisport) – and two of northern Europe’s major seaports, Zeebrugge and Antwerp. Previously the containers had a difficult road journey. “Congestion was actually a threat to the growth of traffic,” Rekers says.

In Zeebrugge, containers arrive at termi-nals for direct transfer to ships - mainly

for the Far East and the UK. In Duisburg, they can transfer directly to a Vienna-Budapest rail shuttle or make use of in-ternational combined transport networks operating out of a dedicated terminal.

The traffic shifted from road to rail ex-ceeded forecasts by well over 5% in the first two years. Duisport was able to go from three services each way per week to four within three months – “fast-er than we had expected,” says Rekers. “The final objective was five times a week, and we achieved this in 2008. We unfortunately had to cut back to four again once EU economies entered recession in 2008-2009, but the project is still meeting its traffic shift targets.”

D E F I N I T E LY W O R T H T H E E F F O R T

D Z R S

“We would reapply. The hurdles to getting the money have been reduced; on the other hand, the amount of money has been increased”

N O R B E R T R E K E R S , D I R E C T O R O F S A L E S F O R T H E D U I S P O R T A G E N C Y , G E R M A N Y

Í S L A N D

S V E R I G E

E E S T I

L A T V I J A

L I E T U V A

D A N M A R K



P O L S K A


A N D O R R A


U N I T E D

K I N G D O M

I R E L A N D

É I R E


S A R D E G N A

B O S N A I


H R V A T S K A

S L O V E N I J A



S U I S S E

F R A N C E


R O M Â N I A

B Â L G A R I J A



T Ü R K I Y E

Κ Υ Π Ρ Ο Σ

Κ Υ Ρ R O S

S O U R I Y A

L I B N A N

I R A Q

I R A N

H A Ï A S T A N

S A K A R T V E L O


N E D E R L A N D

B E L G I Ë

B E L A R U S

U K R A Ï N A

N O R G E

S U O M I

F I N L A N D


D E R A C I J A

B E L G I Q U E

LU X E M B O U R G

Gdańsk

Bydgoszcz

Lublin

Kielce

Szczecin

BerlinPotsdam

Magdeburg

SchwerinHamburg

Kiel

MalmöKøbenhavn

Karlskrona

Kalmar

Växjö

Jönköping

LinköpingNyköping

Visby

Rīga

Klaipėda


Utena

Vilnius

AlytusMinsk

Kyïv

Chişinău

Bucureşti

Sofija

Skopje

Tiranë

Sarajevo

Beograd


Trento

Bologna

Firenze

Perugia

L’Aquilla

Roma

Campobasso

NapoliPotenza

Bari

Ancona

Milano

Genova

Torino Casale

Aosta-Aoste

Klagenfurt

Graz

Budapest


Salzburg Eisenstadt

InnsbruckBern

Bregenz

München

StuttgartStrasbourg


Rouen

Amiens

Lille

London

Caen

Rennes

Nantes

poitier

Limoges

Bordeaux

Toulouse

Orléans

Dijon


Barcelona

Palma de Mallorca

Valencia

Zaragora

Murcia

Alger

Tunis

Cagliari

Palermo

Valletta

Catanzaro


Lamia

Patrai

Tripolis

Irakleion

Ermoupolis

ΑθήναιAthinai

Kozani

Thessaloniki

Komotini

Mytulini

ANKARA

Beyrouth


Dimashq

Yerevan

AjaccioToledo

Valladolid


Vitoria-Gasteiz

SantanderOviedo


Porto

Coimbra

Lisboa

Évora

Faro

Rabat

Sevilla

Tanger

Mérida

Madrid

Montpellier

Marseille

Monaco

Bessançon

Cardiff


Belfast

Edinburgh

BruxellesBrussel

Namur

Düsseldorf

Bremen

Hannover

Amsterdam

MainzWorms Praha


Moskva

Tallinn

HelsinkiHelsingfors


TurkuÅbo


MikkeliSýt Michel

Luleå

Umeå

Östersund

Härnösand

Sundsvall

Gävle

UppsalaVästerås

StockholmKarlstad

Oslo

Örebro

Falun

Rovaniemi

Reykjavík

Marijampolė

KaunasTauragė

Göteborg

Halmstd

DresdenErfurt

Poznań

Zielona Góra

Wrocław

Opole

KrakówKatowice

Rzeszów

Olsztyn

warszawa

Łódż

Rostock

Ventspils

BA

LT

IC

S

EA

GU

LF

OF

BO

TH

NI A

W H I T ES E A


B A R E N T S S E A

B L A C K S E A

A E G E A N

S E A

B A Y

O F

B I S C A Y

T Y R R H E N I A N

S E A

G U L F

O F L I O N SA

DR

I

AT

IC

SE

A

M E D I T E RR

AN

EA

N S E A


AT

LA

NT

IC

O

CE

AN


N O R T H

S E A

C E L T I C S E A

S K A G E R R A K

OuluUleåborg

Vassa

Białystok

Calais

Almería


VeneziaPadova

Worgl

Motorways of the sea

22

P A G E

new routeold route

Project name : Ro-Ro Past France


Durat ion of project grant : September 2007 to December 2011

Lead partner : Sp l iethof f ’s Bevracht ingskantoor, Amsterdam (Nether lands)

Other partners : Transfennica Iber ia S .L (Spain) , Transfennica Belg ium BVBA (Belg ium) , Oy Transfennica AB (F in land)

Volume of goods shi f ted of f the road : 8 .4 b i l l ion tonne-k i lometres (4 .3-year est imate)

Est imated environmental benef i t : €211m (over 4 .3 years)

Contact : kare l .vanz i j [email protected]

“European Union support is important for us and sends a powerful signal to the market that our project has a European di-mension.” For Karel Van Zijl from the lead company, Spliethoff’s Bevrachtingskan-toor of Amsterdam, this is one of the big benefits of the Marco Polo programme.

As its name indicates, this project pro-vides a motorway-of-the-sea alternative to get freight off the congested interna-tional road transit corridor across France. Ro-Ro Past France initially offered three sailings a week (rising to five in Septem-ber 2009) in each direction between Bil-bao in northern Spain and the Belgian port of Zeebrugge. Each vessel carries up to 200 unaccompanied road trailers.

At the Spanish end, trucks deliver trailers to Bilbao destined for the Benelux, north Germany, the United Kingdom and Sweden. Trailers for the UK and Sweden are transhipped to another ferry at Zeebrugge. Other trailers continue by road to their final destination. Southbound freight does the same in reverse.

“We encountered a number of prob-lems at the outset”, says Van Zijl. “First, we had to convince customers we were serious. Other operators had promised similar services but never delivered on

them. Then many trailers did not have ferry eyes (fixture points) for lashing them on board the vessel. In addition, some operators were not familiar with unac-companied transport (trailers without the driving unit and driver). We spent time helping hauliers from Spain and Portugal and those from the northern end of the link to sort out how they could provide driving units for each other’s trailers.”

“We expected to break even after year one; but the economic crisis came along. Volumes are rising again and we are con-fident for the future. We trust the EU sub-sidy will partly compensate us for what we have invested in this service,” says Van Zijl.

E U S U P P O R T E N H A N C E S C R E D I B I L I T Y

R o - R o P a s t F r a n c e

“European Union support is important for us and sends a powerful signal to the market that our project has a European dimension”

K A R E L V A N Z I J L , S P L I E T H O F F ’ S B E V R A C H T I N G S K A N T O O R , A M S T E R D A M

Í S L A N D

S V E R I G E

E E S T I

L A T V I J A

L I E T U V A

D A N M A R K



P O L S K A


A N D O R R A


U N I T E D

K I N G D O M

I R E L A N D

É I R E


S A R D E G N A

B O S N A I


H R V A T S K A

S L O V E N I J A



S U I S S E

F R A N C E


R O M Â N I A

B Â L G A R I J A



T Ü R K I Y E

Κ Υ Π Ρ Ο Σ

Κ Υ Ρ R O S

S O U R I Y A

L I B N A N

I R A Q

I R A N

H A Ï A S T A N

S A K A R T V E L O


N E D E R L A N D

B E L G I Ë

B E L A R U S

U K R A Ï N A

N O R G E

S U O M I

F I N L A N D


D E R A C I J A

B E L G I Q U E

LU X E M B O U R G

Gdańsk

Bydgoszcz

Lublin

Kielce

Szczecin

BerlinPotsdam

Magdeburg

SchwerinHamburg

Kiel

MalmöKøbenhavn

Karlskrona

Kalmar

Växjö

Jönköping

LinköpingNyköping

Visby

Rīga

Klaipėda


Utena

Vilnius

AlytusMinsk

Kyïv

Chişinău

Bucureşti

Sofija

Skopje

Tiranë

Sarajevo

Beograd


Trento

Bologna

Firenze

Perugia

L’Aquilla

Roma

Campobasso

NapoliPotenza

Bari

Ancona

Milano

Genova

Torino Casale

Aosta-Aoste

Klagenfurt

Graz

Budapest


Salzburg Eisenstadt

InnsbruckBern

Bregenz

München

StuttgartStrasbourg


Rouen

Amiens

Lille

London

Caen

Rennes

Nantes

poitier

Limoges

Bordeaux

Toulouse

Orléans

Dijon


Barcelona

Palma de Mallorca

Valencia

Zaragora

Murcia

Alger

Tunis

Cagliari

Palermo

Valletta

Catanzaro


Lamia

Patrai

Tripolis

Irakleion

Ermoupolis

ΑθήναιAthinai

Kozani

Thessaloniki

Komotini

Mytulini

ANKARA

Beyrouth


Dimashq

Yerevan

AjaccioToledo

Valladolid


Vitoria-Gasteiz

SantanderOviedo


Porto

Coimbra

Lisboa

Évora

Faro

Rabat

Sevilla

Tanger

Mérida

Madrid

Montpellier

Marseille

Monaco

Bessançon

Cardiff


Belfast

Edinburgh

BruxellesBrussel

Namur

Düsseldorf

Bremen

Hannover

Amsterdam

MainzWorms Praha


Moskva

Tallinn

HelsinkiHelsingfors


TurkuÅbo


MikkeliSýt Michel

Luleå

Umeå

Östersund

Härnösand

Sundsvall

Gävle

UppsalaVästerås

StockholmKarlstad

Oslo

Örebro

Falun

Rovaniemi

Reykjavík

Marijampolė

KaunasTauragė

Göteborg

Halmstd

DresdenErfurt

Poznań

Zielona Góra

Wrocław

Opole

KrakówKatowice

Rzeszów

Olsztyn

warszawa

Łódż

Rostock

Ventspils

BA

LT

IC

S

EA

GU

LF

OF

BO

TH

NI A

W H I T ES E A


B A R E N T S S E A

B L A C K S E A

A E G E A N

S E A

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T Y R R H E N I A N

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N O R T H

S E A

C E L T I C S E A

S K A G E R R A K

OuluUleåborg

Vassa

Białystok

Calais

Almería


VeneziaPadova

Worgl

Modal shift

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P A G E

new routeold route

Project name : Euro Reefer Rai l Net



Lead partner : HZ Hold ing B.V. Maasdi jk (The Nether lands)

Other partner : Danone N.V. (Belg ium)

Volume of goods shi f ted of f the road : 1 .09 b i l l ion tonne-k i lometres ( three-year est imate)


Contact : hz@hztransport .com

A new rail freight network and innovative multimodal refrigerated containers are at the heart of this ambitious project. Its aim is to switch freight from 11 long-distance road routes onto rail. These truck routes cross Europe from Finland in the North to Italy in the south and from Poland in the east to the UK in the west. They are being replaced by a network of nine dedicated rail freight services with fixed routes and schedules.

According to the lead company, Dutch trans-port group HZ Hold-ing, pressure for this modal shift from road to rail is coming from environmentally aware manufacturers and cus-tomers rather than from governments or freight forwarders. “The project helps us to realise our strategy to force a change of mindset in the existing road transport market”, says HZ logistics director Edwin Schouten.

In addition to launching and operating the new rail network, the Euro Reefer Rail Net will also demonstrate and utilise innova-tive 45-foot reefer containers to transport products that need to be kept cool during transport. Most of the new rail routes are more than 1 000 kilometres long, serving freight terminals in seven countries: Bel-gium, Italy, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Finland and Austria.

“These are early days. The service is stable and developing, but the econom-ic recession has meant lower freight volumes and decreasing prices in the freight transport market”, says Schouten. “We have carried out our modal shift carefully and successfully and are making all efforts to achieve the principal targets.”

G R E E N C U S T O M E R S W A N T M O D A L S H I F T

E u r o R e e f e r R a i l N e t

“The project helps us to realise our strategy to force a change of mindset in the existing road transport market”

E D W I N S C H O U T E N , D I R E C T O R ; H Z L O G I S T I C S

Í S L A N D

S V E R I G E

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L A T V I J A

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P O L S K AD E U T S C H L A N D

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U N I T E D

K I N G D O M

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É I R E


S A R D E G N A

B O S N A I


H R V A T S K A

S L O V E N I J A



S U I S S E

F R A N C E


R O M Â N I A

B Â L G A R I J A



T Ü R K I Y E

Κ Υ Π Ρ Ο Σ

Κ Υ Ρ R O S

S O U R I Y A

L I B N A N

I R A Q

I R A N

H A Ï A S T A N

S A K A R T V E L O


N E D E R L A N D

B E L G I Ë

B E L A R U S

U K R A Ï N A

N O R G E

S U O M I

F I N L A N D


D E R A C I J A

B E L G I Q U E

LU X E M B O U R G

Gdańsk

Bydgoszcz

Lublin

Kielce

Szczecin

BerlinPotsdamMagdeburg

SchwerinHamburg

Kiel

MalmöKøbenhavn

Karlskrona

Kalmar

Växjö

Jönköping

LinköpingNyköping

Visby

Rīga

Klaipėda


Utena

Vilnius

AlytusMinsk

Kyïv

Chişinău

Bucureşti

Sofija

Skopje

Tiranë

Sarajevo

Beograd


Venezia

Trento

Bologna

Firenze

Perugia

L’Aquilla

Roma

Campobasso

NapoliPotenza

Bari

Ancona

Milano

Genova

Torino

Aosta-Aoste

Klagenfurt

Graz

Budapest


Salzburg Eisenstadt

InnsbruckBern

Bregenz

München

StuttgartStrasbourg


Rouen

Amiens

Lille

London

Caen

Rennes

Nantes

poitier

Limoges

Bordeaux

Toulouse

Orléans

Dijon


Barcelona

Palma de Mallorca

Valencia

Zaragora

Murcia

Alger

Tunis

Cagliari

Palermo

Valletta

Catanzaro


Lamia

Patrai

Tripolis

Irakleion

Ermoupolis

ΑθήναιAthinai

Kozani

Thessaloniki

Komotini

Mytulini

ANKARA

Beyrouth


Dimashq

Yerevan

AjaccioToledo

Valladolid


Vitoria-Gasteiz

SantanderOviedo


Porto

Coimbra

Lisboa

Évora

Faro

Rabat

Sevilla

Tanger

Mérida

Madrid

Montpellier

Marseille

Monaco

Bessançon

Cardiff


Belfast

Edinburgh

BruxellesBrussel

Namur

Düsseldorf

Bremen

Hannover

Amsterdam

MainzWorms Praha


Moskva

Tallinn

HelsinkiHelsingfors


TurkuÅbo


MikkeliSýt Michel

Luleå

Umeå

Östersund

Härnösand

Sundsvall

Gävle

UppsalaVästerås

StockholmKarlstad

Oslo

Örebro

Falun

Rovaniemi

Reykjavík

Marijampolė

KaunasTauragė

Göteborg

Halmstd

DresdenErfurt

Poznań

Zielona Góra

Wrocław

Opole

KrakówKatowice

Rzeszów

Olsztyn

warszawa

Łódż

Rostock

Ventspils

BA

LT

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EA

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B A R E N T S S E A

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OuluUleåborg

Vassa

Białystok

Calais

Almería


Catalyst action

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Project name : ETS E lbe


Durat ion of project grant : Apr i l 2007 to March 2011

Lead partner : Sächsische Binnenhäfen Oberelbe GmbH, Dresden

Other partners : Industr iehafen Roßlau GmbH, Magdeburger Hafen GmbH, (Germany) , CSPL a .s . , Česko-Saske P ř i s tavy s . r.o . (Czech Republ ic) , Odra Rhein L loyd GmbH (Germany)

Volume of goods shi f ted of f the road : 440m tonne-k i lometres ( four-year est imate)


Contact : s [email protected]

This project sets out its green credentials up front. ETS stands for Ecological Trans-port Service. The aim is to expand the potential for freight transport on the River Elbe between Germany and the Czech Republic by introducing scheduled services using an integrated transport container system.

The biggest obstacle to expanding freight traf-fic on the Elbe has been periods of extremely low water, when the size and draught of usable vessels were limited. This also made it hard to introduce scheduled services. The result was that many shippers migrated to road transport for the whole inland journey from the German seaports of Hamburg or Bremerhaven.

The ETS Elbe project overcomes the problem by providing a scheduled inland waterway service connecting the deep-water system of the Mittellandkanal and the shallow-draught River Elbe system. The project uses inland waterways for the whole journey when possible, with lo-cal replacement road services when part of the river is not navigable. The use of containers allows a mix of modes.

The hub for the ETS Elbe project is the river port of Magdeburg. It complements

downstream rail and waterway services. Stefan Kunze of Sächsische Binnen-häfen Oberelbe says that even during the extreme low water levels of 2008 “cargo tonnages remained unaffected, thanks to the intensive efforts we made to ensure customers’ interests were our top priority”.

“One unexpected problem we ran into was the different technical specifications of the vessels and barges we use,” says Kunze. “These are from Germany, the Czech Republic and Poland. And despite European norms, they had to be modified to make them compatible with each other and with the equipment and installations in each country.”

“The big extra bonus for us from the project has been the knock-on effect of our marketing for ETS Elbe. New custom-ers have now started to use the service, bringing new business, especially for our port installations,” Kunze says.

U P R I V E R B Y B O AT A N D T R U C K

E T S E l b e

“The big extra bonus for us from the project has been the knock-on effect of our marketing for ETS Elbe. New customers have now started to use the service, bringing new business, especially for our port installations”

S T E F A N K U N Z E , S Ä C H S I S C H E B I N N E N H Ä F E N O B E R E L B E

LIGHTENING THE LOADMARCO POLO LEADS THE WAY

Freight transport clogs Europe’s roads. Yet its railways, sea routes and inland waterways are under-

used. Marco Polo is an EU programme designed to promote these environment-friendly modes of

transport and to shift freight from congested roads. In this brochure, a number of companies describe

how, with Marco Polo support, they launched rail, short-sea shipping and inland waterway projects

as greener alternatives for handling freight. Their message is clear. To succeed, their projects had to

make economic as well as ecological sense. Many road transport users hesitate to change modes

without clear economic benefit. Contributors all say projects would have been scaled back or not

launched at all without Marco Polo funding during the critical start-up phase. This helped make the

economic case to customers for a switch to rail, short-sea shipping routes or inland waterways. But

this brochure also shows how Marco Polo support added credibility to projects – a valuable market-

ing tool – and enhanced the green credentials of project participants, another significant benefit.

EA-78-09-868-EN-C

http://ec.europa.eu/marcopolo

e x e c u t i v e a g e n c y

f o r c o m p e t i t i v e n e s s & i n n o v a t i o n EUROPEAN COMMISSION

Documents

LIGHTENING THE LOAD - European Commission · by freeing the roads of an annual volume of 20 billion tonne-kilometres1 of freight, the equivalent of more than 700 000 trucks a year