Port Integration - Multi-modal innovation for sustainable maritime & hinterland transport structures is designed to identify, exchange & transfer best practices in the transport sector with the aim of an overall integration of related policies.

The background is the recent increase of European transport flows leading to imbalances in the usage of different transport modes. While landside especially the road network is heavily loaded, resulting in traffic congestion & negative economic as well as environmental effects, sea-based transport, especially intra-European short sea shipping, shows high capacity reserves. These imbalances may only be equalized within the framework of integrated concepts for the transport chain as a whole, combining its maritime angle with the hinterland one. By realizing a more balanced usage of transport modes, the demands of an environmentally sustainable & economically efficient transport sector will be met coincidentally.

As ports are the nuclei of maritime & hinterland transport flows, they are the logical actors for a comprehensive integration of transport chains. However, to fulfil this “integrating” function, an analogous political environment on all levels is needed. Existing policies are mainly designed for individual parts of the transport chain, but a really integrated approach is missing. Port Integration will contribute to the development of such a political environment following a 3-staged approach of firstly identifying, secondly exchanging and finally transferring best practices between partners on policy level, e.g. by supporting appropriate multi-modal EDI concepts.

This way strengthening of maritime transport shall be realized in compliance with the establishment of innovative hinterland concepts, thus combining both angles of transport chains within a concerted strategy. Due to the relevance of ports in this approach, partnership has been designed as a mixture of different level political actors & port authorities, all-encompassing direct linkages to the policy level.

With 13 partners from 10 EU countries and Russia, the partnership builds a sound basis to achieve the goals set. Regarding the overall objective, to integrate transport-related policies within a concerted strategy, a three-staged approach has been adopted. Firstly the partnership will identify best practices and summarize them. After prioritizing them according partner needs, they will be ranked as preparatory step for actual exchange activities comprising best practice tours and a capacity-building exchange programme, e.g. to overcome administrative bottlenecks.

Finally, transfer of best practices will begin with the formulation of two Action Plans with measures for actual transfer, brought together into an integrated multi-modal best practice guide. Communication and dissemination being an integral part of the project, it will be guaranteed that project progress and results will spread even beyond the entire partnership.