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FINESSE puts freight back on track
This project kicked off on December 8th in the Brussels
headquarters of the European Parliament. The launch was attended by some 80
participants representing the ports of Boulogne, Calais, Dover, Dunkirk and
Zeebrugge together with delegates from the three regions that are supporting the
partnership namely, Kent, Nord-Pas-de-Calais and West Flanders.
  Detlef Golletz, project manager and Head of
Planning and Infrastructure at SEEDA, opened the meeting with a presentation of
the project. During the next two years the partnership will study the commercial
and technical feasibility of shifting freight from road to rail by
re-instating trainferry links across the Channel.”This project is not
competing against the Channel Tunnel” insisted D.Golletz “it looks at providing
additional capacity for freight in the future, particularly for the transport of
hazardous goods”. He then went on to explain some of the issues behind the
project: “With 100 million passengers and 150 million tons of freight crossing
through it every year, the South East of England is the largest transport
bottleneck in the world, despite the fact that is very well connected. FINESSE
follows up on European and national policies across both sides of the Channnel
which actively encourage modal shift for freight from road to rail”. Over
the last fifteen years, the imbalance between road and rail freight has
dramatically increased. In 2003 only 1.9 million tons of freight
travelled by rail through the Chunnel and the roll on-roll off market still
accounts for 98% of the overall freight traffic
. If one
takes into account current trends, road freight in Europe is forecasted to
increase by another 50% by 2010 which explains why players today are willing to
consider modal shift.
Rail is clearly
the answer
“Dover is the busiest roll
on-roll off port in the world” stated Bob Goldfield, Chief Executive of the Port
of Dover “We handle up to £50 billion of freight every year and handle over 134
000 passengers which is more than Brussels airport for instance. Dover port
supports 24 000 people in employment and every extra ton of freight
creates a further 4 000 jobs
. Bob Goldfield went on to explain how road congestion or road
pricing would inevitably reduce the growth of freight which would have negative
impact on the Port's activities. “We need further capacity to cope with this
expected growth but we face real space constraints. So we've had to think very
carefully on what we want to invest in and shifting road haulage to a rail-based
logistics chain is clearly the answer”.
Targeting the
right market segments
 For Joachim Coens, Chairman and Managing
Director of the Port of Zeebrugge the challenge of the project is also
identifying the market segments it can service. He presented one of the market
segments on which the Port of Zeebrugge thrives, namely the car
industry
which has led the Port to develop links between Northern France,
northern Belgium and the Midlands in the UK. He also made reference to the
harbour's know-how in intermodality through a barge system called Port Connect
that has been running for a number of years.
Encouraging modal
shift at regional level
Arnaud Freville, Head of
Transport at the Nord-Pas de Calais Region emphasized the key role regional
authorities had to play in encouraging modal shift. Although the Nord Pas de
Calais rail network is already quite dense, the regional transport masterplan
has scheduled to build a new freight link along a West – East route between
Boulogne and Amiens to link up with the Lorraine region.” This would tie
in well with one the project's objectives to examine the market potential for
new links between Channel ports and Central and Eastern Europe.
Mr Freville also explained that the Nord Pas de Calais region was now in charge
of the ports of Boulogne, Calais and Dunkirk after the French Government
had decentralised the management of ports to the Regions
.
Getting rail
operators on board
During the panel discussion that followed the
partnership was asked how long it would take to demonstrate the economic
viability of the project. “To help these new links get off the ground,
we may resort to funding from Programme's such as Marco Polo” mentionned Detlef
Golletz “but we are confident that after 3 or 4 years we will be looking at a
sustainable solution“. The partnership expects the project to act as a
catalyser for the rail sector
which is why the main operators (Rail Freight
Group, SNCF, SNCB) are taking part in the project as observers.
To know about more projects and their launches, read about the successful
kick-off events of ENCOURAGE, WIHCC, PROGRESS, ERIH II |
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