Between 2017 and 2020, the Mediterranean Corridor will receive EUR 3.1 billion and the budget guarantees the necessary resources to be able to face the works in progress of this project, according to the Minister of Development in Spain.
This corridor of about 9,700 km, integrating Priority Projects 3 and 6, ERTMS corridor D and corresponding to Rail Freight Corridor 6, will provide a multimodal link to the ports of the western Mediterranean with the centre of the EU. It will also create an east-west link through the southern part of the EU, contribute to intermodality in sensitive areas such as the Pyrenees and the Alps and connect some of the major urban areas of the EU with high speed trains.
Rail freight services are more and more requiring a high quality and sufficiently financed railway infrastructure, thus the Mediterranean Corridor is aimed to improve traffic conditions in terms of reliability and punctuality.
The Mediterranean Corridor is expected to become a major European freight corridor, linking South-Western and Eastern EU countries: in fact, it represents a key access gateway to Ukraine and therefore has a high potential in diverting part of the Europe-Asia traffic flows which are presently ensured by maritime transport.
As said above, Spain is one of the countries crossed by the Mediterranean Corridor. The Minister of Development, Íñigo de la Serna, highlighted that the objective of his department is to promote this project and finalize the ongoing works. De la Serna stressed that they have the necessary resources to be able to meet the commitments they made.
The Ministry of Development will continue to work on all sections where it will be able to tender, award, start works or give continuity to those that already exist with the resources that are accurate.
On the other hand, Minister de la Serna recalled that the implementation of different sections of the Mediterranean Corridor has materialized with an investment that exceeds EUR 9.5 billion out of a total of EUR17 billion global budget for this rail corridor.
Íñigo de la Serna reaffirmed the commitment that the three Catalan sections of the Corridor can be completed in 2020.
Thus, regarding the section that runs between Tarragona-Vandellós, Minister de la Serna said that the forecast is that by the end of the first quarter of 2018 his Department could complete the works and start the period of running tests.
Regarding the section between Vandellós and Castellón, the Minister stated that the necessary procedures for the reactivation of the works are being initiated, as is also done on the section between Castellbisbal and Vilaseca.
De la Serna also highlighted the need to improve accessibility in freight transport thanks to, among other measures, the maritime-terrestrial accessibility programme which provides for an investment of EUR1.4 billion for the period 2017-2021.
The Mediterranean Corridor links the Iberian Peninsula with the Hungarian-Ukrainian border. It follows the Mediterranean coastlines of Spain and France, crosses the Alps towards the east through Northern Italy, leaving the Adriatic coast in Slovenia and Croatia towards Hungary.
Apart from the Po River and some other canals in Northern Italy, it consists of road and rail. Key railway projects along this corridor are the links Lyon – Turin and the section Venice – Ljubljana.
The main missing sections are the new cross border rail links between France and Italy (“Lyon-Turin”) and between Italy and Slovenia (“Trieste-Divača”) and the finalisation of a completely upgraded rail link between Spain and France.
The aim of the Lyon-Turin railway link is to poise rail and road traffic for transporting freight across Europe. The line will be divided into two sections, one with mixed passengers/freight traffic and another with separated lines for each service.
New lines are also built along the Mediterranean Corridor.
Montpellier-Perpignan rail line is one of them. This new line will be the connection to join the Spanish high-speed section Barcelona-Figueres and its link with Perpignan with the new bypass project in Nîmes and Montpellier and the lines to Lyon, which will be effective in 2018.
The new line Lyon – St. Jean de Maurienne is an answer to the participants States’ wish for a better balance between modes of transport and to the creation of alternatives to road traffic, given the natural environment, which is particularly sensitive in this region. The new infrastructure will also connect regions of southern Europe to the major North Sea ports.
The implementation of the Mediterranean Corridor must comprise the development of the “green corridor” concept including the development of new technologies and techniques, intermodal solutions, service optimisation and ERTMS control and signalling European-wide solution.
The Transport Market Study on Mediterranean Corridor, conducted by the European Commission, confirms the strategic importance of this infrastructure in the overall European transport systems network.
Share on:
