Dryport - Dryport - a modal shift in practice
Overview
Background & policy context:
The Dryport concept consists of 'green' hinterland freight combi-terminals that are fully integrated with the freight handling systems in Gateway ports. The idea is to move key logistics functions from the port itself to the 'dryport' inland terminal.
The concept is being tested in six areas:
- In three real sites (Skaraborg Logistic Center in Falköping, Sweden, the 'Maritime Logistical Zone' in Zeebrugge, Belgium, and the Haven Gateway, centred on Felixstowe in Eastern England).
- And in three other areas which connect either a good hinterland structure to a port gateway (Friesland by inland waterways and Emmen by improved railway - both in the Netherlands) or try to design effective hinterland transport structures from and to the gateway (Forth Estuary, Scotland).
Objectives:
The project's aim is to develop, design and set effective hinterland intermodal freight transport nodes -"dryports" - that are fully integrated with the Gateway’s freight handling systems, to adapt a public concept to a private sector model, to monitor CO2 effects and to integrate dryports into the EU Motorways of the Sea concept.
Outcomes are expected to be a road book with recommendations, overall strategic land availability and suitability location surveys; a road book for the planning of Inter-modal logistics centres and a knowledge improvement of public sector planning on the need of logistics and supply chain businesses. Expected results in the regions involved are substantial steps in realising a dryport: the transformation of combi-terminals into distant dryports.
Methodology:
University research (one as a partner) and external expertise will focus on the monitoring of data for carbon neutral freight handling. The outcome will be environmental impact monitors of intermodality within the sub-region and on national transport level; expected results are monitoring instruments for goods handling processes in the Gateway – Hinterland movements and an estimation of CO2 claims of various modes of transport. Also, an environmental impact model for ongoing monitoring of intermodal shift.
A final expected result is a circular Motorway of the Sea scheme in the North Sea area with short sea shipping, feeder traffic & regular shipping lines, using the green logistics of dryports and taking goods from road to sea to interconnect interregionally. In the Scottish case for example a blueprint of a potential Scottish dryport structure for the Edinburgh gateway is the aim and implies research material on rail potentials that allows the harbour systems to handle more goods by short sea shipping as swift handling by rail is guaranteed.
In all project phases an important role is thought for research; in a triple helix cooperation between public, private and research studies are undertaken in goods destination, in carbon reduction, in goods flows analyses, in site assessment (where to plan and how to plan) and in feasibility studies comparing road, rail and inland water transport modes.
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