THE seventh Mobility Event organised by Port of Antwerp earlier this month was dedicated to the modal shift. The port presented a series of new initiatives to make rail and barge transport more attractive.
By water
Port of Antwerp aims to reduce the amount of road transport by 4 per cent in favour of barge between now and 2030. The Container Barge Action Plan focuses on consolidation, digitisation and efficient scheduling, so as to streamline the collaboration between the various logistics partners so that goods move faster along the supply chain.
At the same time, Port of Antwerp pro-motes short-sea shipping for goods carried from Belgium or neighbouring countries to, for instance, Spain or Turkey. With the spectre of Brexit looming, short-sea transport offers a promising alternative to trucks travelling to and from the UK as it involves fewer Customs formalities.
By rail
Port of Antwerp has ambitions for rail too, hoping to double the proportion of goods carried by rail from 7 per cent to 15 per cent by 2030. Together with Rail-port and Infrabel, the port focuses on making more efficient and flexible use of its existing rail capacity. This will be achieved thanks to, among others, the Rail Traffic System, a digital trial project for exchange of information between the rail players and the terminals.
Together these initiatives should significantly curb the share of road transport which currently stands at 55 per cent, said a release.
“As a community builder we are working together with the port community to achieve an accessible port. We are working on various interesting transport alter-natives both for goods and for people, in order to guarantee the accessibility of our port in a sustainable way,” says port alderman Ms Annick De Ridder.
