Overview
Distances and the type of goods to be transported are the most important determinants of the chosen transport mode. Perishable or deteriorating goods such as fresh fish, flowers and fruits, are particularly time sensitive and fragile. Because intermodal transport solutions (the movement of cargo/products using more than one mode of transport) rely on time-consuming transhipment, they are at a disadvantage compared with all-road transport. For this reason, perishable products were typically transported by road due to the flexibility of “door to door” deliveries. Nowadays, improved refrigeration technologies have made the time factor less critical allowing the use of a large variety of transport modes such as refrigerated trucks and railcars, refrigerated cargo ships and air cargoes. The use of different transport modes within the same logistics chain (the cold chain), along both sea and inland routes, has various advantages, such as permitting the transport of temperature sensitive food products to distant markets or the exploitation of economies of scale in their distribution. The Action is part of a Global Project whose objective is to achieve a safe, sustainable and efficient fresh food transport system in the Euro-Mediterranean area through the long term effective and sustainable connection between the Trans-Mediterranean Transport Network (TMT-T) and the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T) of which MoS represent the maritime dimension. The Global project is composed by three different parts:
- Part A - Establishing and demonstrating Fresh Food Corridors (FFC) between Israel / Jordan and Europe. (2014/2017)
- Part B - Pilot Corridor (Cyprus - Europe and Egypt) focused on IT and process integration (2015-2017)
- Part C - Extending the FFC to Morocco (2015/2018)
- Part D - Extending the FFC to other non-EU countries in the Mediterranean Basin and overseas.
Part A, the current pilot Action, will develop and assess an innovative logistical corridor concept that aims to impact significantly the transportation of refrigerated and frozen goods from the East Mediterranean Basin to Central & North EU Markets, shifting reefers from road to rail. The overall objective of the Action is to enhance a sustainable inter-modal transport and logistics system for freight movement between Mediterranean and Northern European destinations by rail. Dry and reefer containers will move from their origin by inland transportation modes to the gateway ports, then by vessels on a scheduled service between non-EU ports in the Mediterranean (Israel) to EU ports (Venice in Italy, Marseille in France & Koper in Slovenia), then by dedicated rail services to Northern logistical centres (e.g. Rotterdam) and then by truck to the end client. A pilot project on Cyprus - Europe and Cyprus - Egypt corridor will focus on IT and process integration to support business administration processes for perishable trade from Egypt to EU and also a transferability analysis of the concept between the port of La Spezia and further non-EU countries will be conducted. In this respect, the overall objectives addressed by the Action are the following:
- Shortening delivery times of refrigerated goods, hence extending their shelf-life and value
- Reduce costs of land transportation using reefer trains along the existing European railway network
- Reduce C02 emissions, congestion and road fatalities associated with land transportation
- Improve regional, EU and non-EU countries’ international cooperation on trade in order to balance freight flows
The main specific related objectives are the following:
- designing & testing of new technologies for power supply on rail
- integrating existing processes and IT systems to support business & administration processes of perishables trade
- analyse & assess a new cold logistics chain between EU & non-EU trading partners
- adapting IT, port facilities and infrastructure to the new reefer chain