Robin J. Martens, Director General Archicom Romania;
Managing Director European Gateways Platform
The wintry conditions at the moment, in Romania as well as in the Netherlands from where I am writing this, remind me of last February when I had to go to Stockholm as I had been invited to speak on the European “Green Ports” conference.
It was to be a combined working and pleasure trip as we have friends living near Stockholm. The automatic idea to go was by car, obviously, not?
Then came the idea, as weather forecast were bad and a lot of snow was expected, let’s see what the possibilities are by train. So I started searching on the internet, how to get from Rotterdam to Stockholm, what was the transit time, and what were the costs for four persons.
But to my surprise there was no single booking office to just plot in Rotterdam, Stockholm, dates of travel and then push enter to receive an overview of route, times and cost. I had to knot together data from three different websites to generate the information I needed. Then I needed to have some alternatives of dates et cetera, and it just took too much time, so I gave up….and went by car.
This is a situation seen many times with intermodal freight transport as well. There are thresholds to use intermodal freight transport vis-à-vis road transport and the convenience of use, or better its relative absence, is one of them. Is this a story of complaints?
No, not at all, because even given the thresholds that do still exist:
a) Intermodal freight transport is gaining, and
b) Improvements are being made.
The business environment is therefore improving and this is an important conclusion. Further, it can only become better and thus more competitive!
I am expecting a positive year for intermodal transport in and to and from Romania this year! Not only because the freight volume is growing, but also because important positive measures and developments are expected to be implemented. Among them the inauguration of the EuroGate Terminal in Ploieşti!
But should that make us sit down and lean back? No!! It should further activate us to benefit as much as possible and to make more steps together!
One such step is to change one of the regulations from Brussels. This concerns the loading units that may be used for transport to/from an intermodal terminal. Continental cargo preferably uses 45foot containers and SWAP bodies. However, the regulation from Brussels only allows 40foot ISO containers as a maximum. How can Brussels not change this regulation immediately???
Come Brussels, we are in 2011, in the decade where intermodal transport has to flourish to reduce traffic and environmental pressures! You know it is needed, you have it in your charter to grow intermodal transport! Then give us the tools to realize our common goal of intermodal transport becoming the transport mode of choice!!
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