Transport Study Encourages Water Freight
Road pricing schemes which would encourage haulage firms to shift some of their freight off the crowded road network and onto trains, inland waterways and short sea shipping routes were highlighted in a new study into the use of strategic transport corridors in Europe over the next decade undertaken on behalf of 15 governmental and industry organisations. The Capacity 2015 project, led by BMTTransport Solutions GmbH , concluded that there would be a 58% increase in road haulage within ten years if existing policies and infrastructure investment levels were maintained.
The nine month study concluded that improvements made to Europe’s roads will only exacerbate this problem in selected road haulage corridors, with simulations showing that without concurrent road pricing, freight transport along these corridors will actually increase by 93%. Although some benefit of capacity increases will be felt in rural areas, bottlenecks will still occur, particularly in densely populated areas.
The results of the study clearly underline the need for the freight industry to be provided with strong incentives to use a variety of modes of transport in a more strategic way if bottlenecks are to be addressed over the next decade.
The results will be used by the European Union and industry projects commissioners and inform future policy decisions to address what is likely to become an increasingly challenging issue in the future. Based on the results, four potential scenarios of how transport networks might be used in the future were assessed using transport flow modelling and simulation software.
Commissioners in the Capacity 2015 project include the ferry companies Stena Line, Scandlines, TT-Line and Color Line, the Swedish Port of Trelleborg, the Norwegian Shippers Council and the Swedish Maritime Administration.
MJ Information No: 20706
Related Articles
MARINE CONSTRUCTION
POWER & PROPULSION
ENVIRONMENT