1. The “freight villages” (english designation) are called in different ways depending on the country:
“Interporti” in Italy;
“Transport Centres” in Denmark;
“Gunterverkehrszentren” in Germany;
“Zonas de Actividaedes Logisticas” in Spain.
2. The different experiences of achievement show differences in the organization of infrastructure and services that offer the same logistics platforms.
THE ITALIAN MODEL: “INTERPORTO”
1. The platforms are built quite heterogeneous and occupy an average area of 1,1mln square meters, but the necessary condition to the existence of a freight village is the simultaneous presence of areas dedicated to logistics, the areas used for intermodal services and a railway terminal.
2. There are also vast areas that could be used for expansion in the short-medium term, areas already in availability of the operator, and not yet infrastructured, totaling over 10 million square meters.
3. In total, therefore, the Italian freight village system is internally constituted by: a vast real estate assets, both of warehouses and office buildings, both in terms of land.
4. If fact, legislator has given the objective of freight management companies to organize the structures in order to facilitate inter-modality through the use of rail transport.
5. To date only a few have important freight movements inside the terminal. In fact there is a strong concentration of flows confined only to some freight villages. In particular, a third of freight villages (8 of 24) show movements TEUs in 2012 amounted to more than 98% of freight village total.
6. This criticism is partly due to infrastructural limits. These limits may be internal or external to the structure.
7. For this reason, the freight operator have shown the need for a greater focus of resources to overcome bottlenecks on the existing internal and external network freight village system (due to the length of the tracks within the stations, to the limits of shape, slope of the rail network, transit times, etc …).
8. On one hand there is the need to complete and to make efficient intermodal terminal, thanks to the use of instruments of public-private partnership, the other is necessary to focus interventions on the rail network in order to give priority to those that make fully operational.
THE DUTCH MODEL: “TRANSPORT CENTRES”
1. To date, the area that is most attractive and should remain so 2018 is the area of Venlo, in the southeastern part of the Netherlands, on the border with Germany.
2. This area is also can take advantage of one hand connections with the international airports of Amsterdam (one of the largest airports in Europe), Maastricht/Aachen, Dusseldorf and Antwerp, other part a direct river connection by opening of the new river port on the river Meuse, one of the largest navigable rivers of Europe.
3. The success of this area must therefore be attributed to the ability of local authorities to develop, since the late 80s, the potential of the area in terms of location. It is then formed a dense series of direct links with the main traffic junctions of the area, using all modes of transportation exist.
THE GERMAN MODEL: “GUNTERVERKEHRSZENTREN”
1. In Germany there is a branched freight village system consisting of 34 facilities, 21 of which belong to the DGG, a limited liability company founded in 1993 to represent the common interests of the different structures.
2. In particular, the DGG works to promote and enhance the German freight villages by supporting the cooperation between the different structures.
3. The typical areas in which the company operates are: the creation of new intermodal connections between different logistics centers, the harmonization of standards of services between different areas, and the development of sustainable models of logistic center.
4. Cooperation that can create the DGG is one of the characteristics of strength of the model freight village German. On average, logistics centers in Germany occupy about 2.1 million square meters, however presenting a marked variability. The freight village is in fact smaller Herne, with 230,000 square meters, while the largest is to Leipzig with 6.75 million sq. m. German structures appear to be so, on average, larger than Italian.
5. At the same time the German logistics centers enliven a greater number of TEUs within their the terminal. In particular, in 2009 the German freight village system handled 2.3 million TEUs.
6. One of the main German logistics centers (along with the GVZ Bremen indicated by DGG as the best in Germany) is the logistic center of Nuremberg (“Bayernhafen Nurnberg”), located in southern Germany.
7. The Bavarian guest receives flows from the Mediterranean ports and ports in northern Europe, being substantially midway between the two seas. The freight village is also located in one of the most attractive logistics of Germany according to the classification made by Prologis. The Intermodal is managed by a company totally public. In particular, 80% of the shares is held by Bayernahafen GmbH, in turn 100% owned by the State of Bavaria. The remainder of the shares are held by the City of Nuremberg (19%) and the neighboring town of Roth (1%).
8. The area covers a total area of 3.34 million square meters and houses inside the structures needed to develop freight transport in three different ways: road, rail and river. The rail terminal, in particular, covers an area of 160,000 square meters and can receive trains with a maximum length of 700 m, with a handling capacity of 480,000 TEUs of cargo a year. In 2012 TEUs handled amounted to 65% of total capacity, reaching 312,000 TEUs, with an annual increase of 9.3%.
THE SPANISH MODEL: “ZONAS DE ACTIVIDAEDES LOGISTICAS”
1. The Spanish model has always had an approach “road oriented” which has always favored the road transport at the expense of rail. This choice by Spain is partially dictated by the poor infrastructure of the railway network. For this reason, in many cases the Spanish center are very close to the concept of traffic center, where little space is left to intermodal.
2. Another problematic network freight village Spanish, partly also in the Italian system, is the lack of a strategic vision and long-term, he sees the different structures as integral parts of a single organ system. The planning of facilities in Spain was mainly influenced by the logic of type localist and regional.
3. The Puerto Seco de Madrid is managed by a wholly public, it is controlled to 25% by the Comunidad de Madrid, to 13.08% by SEPES (Servicio Público de Empleo Estatal), for the 10.92% by the municipality of Coslada, and to 10.2% respectively by the Ente Público Puertos del Estado and port authorities of Algeciras, Barcelona, Valencia and Bilbao.
4. This corporate structure underlines how the mission of the structure is to support the network of Spanish ports and promote the area of Madrid. The Puerto Seco consists of a railway terminal covering 140,000 square meters, which has developed since 2001 connections with the ports of Algeciras, Barcelona, Bilbao and Valencia.
5. In 2011 the Puerto Seco de Madrid has handled over 100,000 TEUs, almost all from the port of Valencia. Next to Puerto Seco is present, as mentioned earlier, the Centro de Transportes de Coslada covering over 1 million square meters and provides logistics services for located companies.
SYNTHESIS OF THE SUCCESS FACTORS
1. First, it is essential to a strong coordinating role, able to form partnerships between the single logistics centers in order to create stable intermodal connections and sharing of successful practices, well as to develop a standardization and harmonization of services. This can be partly carried out by a trade association or a company (as in German), but also the central government must give a strategic planning long-term.
2. A second key feature for the success of the freight village areas is the ability to develop intermodal traffic. This feature, to the success both the area of Venlo, both Interport Nuremberg and logistics area in the suburbs of Madrid, is able to use, in addition to road transport, also the rail transport, in the first two cases, on the river, exploiting the connections with important airport facilities.
(Source: http://www.officeprime.eu/2017/02/18/freight-villages/)
