• More and more companies are interested to participate in the projects
• Founding companies apply measures to facilitate border crossing procedures
• Plans to expand the geographical area to include as many countries as possible
Railway companies are interested in stimulating freight transport not only by launching new services, but also by making joint efforts aimed to increase traffic performance. In Europe, several companies have decided to perform common projects on traffic efficiency by simplifying border crossing procedures and harmonizing administrative formalities. The success of these projects is proved by the continuous growth of freight volumes and, consequently, together with founding companies, many countries are more and more interested in participating to joint projects.
Ten years after the launch of the freight transport service “Viking Train”, the volume of carried freight has increased 100 times reaching 58.9 TEUs and the success of this service has been proved not only by the continuous growth of transport, but also by the intention of member companies of expanding the geographical area of the service.
In 2002, the railway companies in Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania signed an agreement on the organisation of operating and organisational aspects of railway transport between the three countries and a year later the transport service was launched. The main condition for the development of freight transport, as part of the project, was the optimisation of technology, the facilitation of procedures for releasing papers, customs control and building an attractive tariff policy.
Cooperation between interested parties has determined the creation of discussion platforms between transport ministries, railway companies, customs and border authorities in Belarus, Lithuania, Turkey, Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia, Syria, Bulgaria and Greece in order to facilitate the transport of freight across borders for Viking member states. Another objective of this project is to attract freight to railways on the axis Europe-Caucasus-Asia and freight from Turkey and Middle East to Northern Europe (and vice-versa). Moreover, in order to increase freight volumes, railway companies in the three countries that have initiated the project have extended the tariff conditions, unchanged since 2008, for the first half of 2013.
Apart from transport effectiveness, from facilitating the entire border-crossing process to the organisation of train and stop points, the development of the service doesn’t only mean optimisation of services and launching of new services, but also geographical expansion.
“We benefit from all the levers necessary to traffic development, including adequate infrastructure, experience and modern technology. Moreover, there are plans according to which the route should expand to connect the Black Sea to the Baltic Sea”, declared Alexander Stankevich, Operations Manager of Belarus Railways.
During a reunion of the railway operators and the railway managers in Belarus, Lithuania and Ukraine, the parties have approached the problem of developing the service by covering a larger geographical area. Therefore, the participants proposed expanding the “Viking” operations to the Republic of Moldova and Bulgaria in order to attract freight from Russia (especially from Kaliningrad region), the delivery of freight and supply of heavy container transport services. Several months after the initiation of talks on the expansion proposals, BDZ Freight Services operator has become member of the Viking project, the decision being adopted as part of a meeting (of December 2012) between the representatives of the railway managers in Belarus, Lithuania, Ukraine, and Bulgaria. This decision will ensure the best of conditions for the transport of freight to Bulgaria and for increasing the volumes of carried freight.
In March 2013, the press agency in Belarus (BelTA) announced that Viking freight container transport service could be expanded to Turkey, the decision of including Turkey in the network served by Viking trains being made after Bulgaria (already included) and Romania have announced their plans of joining the project. The same reunion which concluded in the accession of Turkey to the project was also attended by delegates from Sweden interested in Viking to ship car body parts to Russia. The Viking project consists in the transport of freight in the Black Sea Region, Africa and America, Middle East and Asia. The train includes platform for heavy containers, special platforms for the transport of cars and passenger coaches for the drivers. The total length of the route is of 1,766 km on the axis Iljichevsk/Odessa (Ukraine) –Berezhest (Ukraine) – Slovechno (Belarus)-Minsk-Gudogai (Belarus) – Kena (Lithuania)-Klaipeda (Lithuania).
Croatia, Serbia and Slovenia want to boost freight traffic
Another project which stipulates the simplification of border-crossing procedures and the harmonisation of administrative formalities for reducing the freight travel time is “Cargo 10”. In order to make railway traffic on Corridor X effective, the railway companies in Croatia (HZ), Slovenia (SJ) and Serbia (SZ) have decided to set up the Cargo 10 Company. An intense and coordinated cooperation between railway companies and customs services will help increase freight volumes, reduce costs and the travel time: from Serbia (Paraćin) to Sežana (Slovenian border with Italy), the time will be reduced by 10h which will also make possible the increase of the number of trains from 1,000 to 2,000. The advantages provided by Cargo 10 have awaken the interest of other companies Bosnia Herzegovina, Srpska Republic, Montenegro and Macedonia expressing their participation interest immediately after the establishment of the transport service. However, it is possible that the three founding countries would include the Bulgarian transport companies as members seeking opportunities for partnerships with Greece and Turkey.
In March 2013, Slovenian Railways announced that it was possible to include Italian Railways in Cargo 10 in order to join their efforts for a plus of quality and competitiveness. The offer could also expand to Macedonia.
The discussions between the representatives of Serbian Railways, Slovenia and Croatia have established the necessity to boost traffic in order to shift freight volumes from roads to railways (carried on Corridor X). In this context, over the next months Serbian Railways will elaborate proposals for consolidating traffic and the activities of Cargo 10 that will be then harmonised by groups of experts from the three countries. The promotion of the joint offer for the international freight traffic will take place in June. “Serbian Railways will carry out organisational and normative activities to significantly reduce time through Serbia. Only by reducing time for customs procedures will we be capable to reduce travel time by several hours. Also, an improved organisation of traffic within Cargo 10 will help us deliver an efficient transport service”, declared the company’s general manager Dragoljub Simonovic.
Moreover, Serbia has committed to apply measures to accelerate the overhaul of freight cars so as to carry goods for Slovenian customers.
The representatives of the two railway companies have agreed with the joint services so as to increase the competitiveness of international traffic and the traffic speed. In order to reach these objectives, Cargo 10 will have to launch offers to answer to the customers’ requirements, to reduce travel time and the time the trains spend at borders for customs procedures. Moreover, the joint venture will have to carry out all administrative formalities by itself without intermediaries.
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