The maritime Danube has the capacity and can become an Eastern gate of Europe. Carmen Costache, Deputy General Manager of the Maritime Danube Ports Administration – Galaţi held during the Moldovan Railway Summit an interesting and useful presentation on the role of the maritime Danube in the revitalisation of intermodal waterborne-railway transport but also in the execution of the interoperability of European transport networks and the consolidation of transport links on the Eurasian platform. Likewise, the main development advantages for Iaşi Intermodal Regional Freight Transport Centre have been presented by Emilia Popescu from Iaşi County Council.
Romania needs firm strategies for the execution of modernisation and development projects of river ports and of intermodal freight terminals.
Danube ports also need to develop their capacity in order to become logistics centres and integrate into the intermodal transport system, considering the vast extension of Corridor VII – Danube on the Romanian territory. The railway infrastructure is an advantage for the increase of the freight volume in these ports, so that financing the modernisation of port railway infrastructures proved to be necessary. Such a Danube port which needs the infrastructure and the freight terminal development is the one in Galaţi.
The attraction of freight flows, both to the Danube ports and to the freight terminals, is another objective to be met.
The development of the waterway network must be considered an essential element of the development of an intermodal transport system at the intra-European level. The Minister of Transport has announced that in 2013 about EUR 162 Million will be granted to the modernisation and development of the ship transport infrastructure along the priority axis TEN-T 18 – Danube. Galaţi Port is the only Romanian port benefiting also from broad-gauge lines, as well as from possibilities of transposition/transhipment of wagons which confers it an advantagein the execution of the intermodal transport activity.
The development of the project “Iaşi Intermodal Regional Freight Transport Centre” implies a series of advantages for the revival of the intermodal transport in the North-Eastern area of Romania. Therefore, the Iaşi region is located strategically on the core TEN-T network and benefits from transport infrastructure on broad-gauge line thus facilitating the railway connection with the Republic of Moldova, Ukraine and Russia.
The development of Iaşi intermodal freight centre supposes the creation of a pole of economic growth in the region of Moldova through the concentration of business structures in Iaşi, named “Future Hub Iaşi”. The objective will be financed by SOP-T, Priority Axis 3 – Promoting the intermodal transport, the value of the investment reaching EUR 39.9 Million.
The Centre benefits from the proximity of railways, Holboca station.
Among the objectives of this investment project is the increase of the attractiveness of Iaşi region for international commercial activities by ensuring facilities related to the intermodal freight shift and the support of the development of “green corridors” for logistics transport, in accordance with the “White Paper on Transport”.
Another strategic objective of Iaşi project is to turn into account the existing freight transport infrastructure by attracting freight flows from the road sector to the railway sector .
The execution of the project “Future Hub Iaşi” aims at attracting companies which will offer integrated services in the fields of logistics and railway freight transport.
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