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Germany Interviewees Steering Committee Representatives Links Intermodal transport has for several years received a high priority in the German transport policy and now more than ever. The economic and environmental benefits have been the decisive factors for the intermodal policy effort and investments in intermodal terminals have been one of the means to reach the goal. Furthermore, Germany tries to support the European effort to promote intermodality through the European policy. The reasoning for the European participation is that intermodality works more efficient if all involved countries participate on equal terms.
No research programme on intermodality and terminals exists in Germany today. Several intermodal projects have been launched earlier within the KV programme (Technology platform 2000+) including projects focusing on terminals as part of the intermodal chain. The intermodal part of the programme was cancelled as one of the main intermodal operators decided to leave the programme. Several industrial partners were involved in 2000+, where new transfer systems and technologies were developed, but the full-scale implementations of these systems are yet to be seen.
The aim of the programme "Flexible Transport Chain" is to reduce road transport by 100 mill truck km/year through the creation of a more efficient transport sector and through the use of intelligent transport systems and technologies. This programme has currently 16 large demonstration projects. Several new national research studies have been launched this year e.g.: Logistic rethinking related to transport of empty containers, New systems for road pricing, Development of city logistics, and New terminal concepts for inland waterways.
Companies address the Ministry of Transport and the Ministry of Research to receive financing. The ministries develop the broad framework for transport research based on the interests from the industry. No co-financing is given to German participants in European research projects.
Terminal infrastructure can be financed by the German state as a part of the infrastructure investments with the aim of creating an extensive intermodal network and avoiding that operators focus on only a few main corridors. The Ministry of Transport subsidises the construction and purchase of handling equipment. Consortia's can apply to build and operate the terminal and applications are evaluated by a group of experts from the public and private sector who estimates freight volumes, operational relations and terminal location. Financed terminals needs to run with open access towards all interested parties. Originally 2 BEURO were dedicated to terminal investments in the next ten-year period. The rather large investments in transfer points in recent years were given based on prognoses of a growing market for intermodal transport, but today the prognoses are more pessimistic, decreasing the intermodal rail freight prospects from 90 mill tonnes to 30 mill tonnes per year, thus the investments have been stalled. DB plan to limit the number of terminals in the network from 60-70 today and down to 30 terminals in the future e.g. based on the new prognoses. A new committee has been formed to analyse how this negative trend can be reversed and the results will be used as foundation for future investments and research.
Bremen Guterverkehrszentren (GVZs) is one of the leading intermodal freight transfer or distribution centres in Europe, in terms of size and number of companies involved. In many respects, the Bremen facility is a prototype for other GVZs planned for Germany within the next few years. They serve as transfer points where short- and long-distance surface/freight traffic meet. The aim is to promote co-operation between the industries and to create logistic synergy. In essence, these GVZs are industrial areas where various freight transport enterprises are located, all of which remain independent, retaining their legal and economic autonomy.
Cologne Container Transfer Facility is one of Germany's most modern rail intermodal transfer facilities. This facility is the culmination of similar facilities started in 1969 in response to the increased rail use of TEUs by shippers. Planning started in the mid-1980's and today uses some of the most modern and technologically efficient intermodal handling equipment recently developed in Germany. Opened in 1991, the facility is presently being expanded, completion of which is expected by 1997. By then more than 64 MEURO will have been invested in that facility by the German government.
The ports are considered as important nodal points in intermodal corridors and Germany has supported the European effort of including ports and Short Sea Shipping in the intermodal policy discussions. There is an intense competition between the large German ports and the minor ports seek towards specialised services in order to attract customers. The programme ISETEC has contributed with 36 MEURO to develop the ports and in particular port community systems. Several German seaports pooled research and development funds and human resources in order to develop advanced marine terminal intermodal container-handling technologies and concepts to increase the efficiency and profitability of German seaports. The partners, which include BLG Bremen Warehouse Company, Bremen; DAKOSY Datenkommunikations-system GmbH, Hamburg; DBH Datenbank Bremische Hafen GmbH, Bremen; Eurokai, Hamburg; HHLA Hamburger Hafen-und Lagerhaus, Hamburg; along with close co-operation of the Ministry of Research and Technology, developed the concept of the Container Terminal 2010. The concepts and technologies for that terminal involve advanced port-communications systems, terminal-planning systems, and cargo-handling systems. The goal is to co-ordinate shipping lines, agencies, forwarders, trucking companies, railways, and customs into one centrally controlled system that speeds the flow of containers in, through, and out of the marine terminal, and improves maintenance and repair.
Germany seeks influence in the European research and policy development in order to create synergy with national activities. National research results can be obtained through the universities, regions, ministries, monitoring agencies as TÜV Rheinland and research institutes like SGKV where a library of intermodal research is under construction. The Commission funded PACT programme is considered as an important tool to boost intermodal activities.
Most intermodal transport research areas are covered today but there is a clear need to make research results more operational. It is not the role of the Member States to keep transport systems artificially alive and the technological development should not be an issue of public financing. Their role should be to help innovations to penetrate the market. Policy should focus on the objectives and not on how to reach them, this should be addressed by the industry. Germany supports the creation of concertation activities as they see a need too improve the co-ordination of European and national research activities. Improved access to research results is demanded in order to obtain more European co-ordination activities and to assist cross-fertilisation of European research.
The summer of 2001 saw the foundation of a competence centre for intermodal transport called EURIFT (Europäisches Referenzzentrum für den intermodalen Frachttransport – European reference centre for intermodal freight transport) in Hamburg. Founders are the German City-Länder Hamburg and Bremen jointly with the Technical University of Hamburg-Harburg (where it is located), supported also by the European Centre for Transport and Logistics (ECTL), the Institut für Seeverkehrswirtschaft und Logistik (ISL) Bremen, the Technical University Chalmers in Sweden as well as DG TREN of the European Commission. Main issues are in a first step the collection of data which will finally broaden the knowledge about intermodal transport. In a second larger phase from the information gathered applications will be developed which will in the end be transfered into services for the founders and other customers. For the first three years funds of up to 2.2m € come form the City-Länder and the Commission, afterwards the centre is to be self-sustained by selling their services.
In August 2001 the German Ministry of Transport reported to the parliament about results of the above-mentioned 'Förderrichtlinie Kombinierter Verkehr'. Among the recommendations given some points were particularly highlighted. Among them is the idea to provide special funds for new innovative intermodal projects, which will help them – if only temporarily – over the first difficult steps. The report also recommends to keep the PACT programme of the European Union running; within this framework a network of the various Short Sea Shipping Promotion Centres wuold be thinkable.
Trends in terminal construction The results have shown that there is little or no need for additional intermodal terminals. The funding in the last period has therefore been allocated primarily to inland waterways where the major growth is located. A 2-year research and development programme has been set up last autumn to adapt intermodal transport operation software to current needs of road/rail terminals. The software aims at an optimisation of loading unit flow, crane movement, personal disposition and shall give reference to the individual position of loading units waiting for pick-up. The software shall be installed in a reference terminal, further improved and then distributed to other terminals. Finally, when several terminals are operating on this specific software, easy data exchange between the terminals should be facilitated.
Logistics trends Intermodal transport could, up to now, not offer time windows that could be accepted by courier, parcel and express operators. This had been difficult on longer distances in domestic operations. Railway rolling stock becomes rapidly more costly once the traditional speed limits in freight transport are increased, i.e. if speeds of more than 120 km/h or more than 160 km/h shall be realised. Nevertheless, some limited services could be established in Germany. Normally, the intermodal transport train network in domestic Germany is operated at night time. Meanwhile, some operators consider day trains, mainly for international consignments that often arrive in the morning hour at the German border interface. This is especially the case for loading units arriving from Scandinavia in Lübeck-Travemünde for on carriage into South Germany and Italy.
No new solutions Currently, Germany operates a 5 days a week scheme of intermodal trains that interface some 30 terminals and carry 30 – 33 million tons per year. This system seems to be rather at the end of its expansion possibilities. Unfortunately, these new endeavours have not shown commercial viability:
Best Practice – Inland waterways At least one success story is at hand: Inland waterway transport with ISO containers has increased tremendously in the last years. Growth rates of 18 % - 25 % per year are currently experienced. The transport of such containers concentrates currently on the Rhine valley. New inland waterway ships have come into service that can carry 498 TEU, i.e. that offer the capacity of 6 block trains. This example shows how competitive this way of transport is. In addition, a considerable part of the industry in the European Continent is concentrated along side the Rhine so that concentrated flows of cargo are common. In these days, hub port are developing such as Mannheim/Ludwigshafen, Koblenz, Duisburg, Krefeld. Additional inland waterway liner operations are established between these hub ports and side river and canals, so that the network served is constantly enlarged.  Printable version |
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