News

EPRD has recently finalized a comprehensive study on introducing intermodal (piggyback) transport solutions across the EU/CU border. The project, commissioned by the Northern Dimension Partnership forTransportation and Logistics (NDPTL) and contracted by the EUD in Russia, involved field research and visits to Finland, Lithuania, Belarus and Russia and ended up in preparation of an analysis of applicable international/national legal and logistic basis for regulating the combined/intermodal transportation across the EU/CU and of feasibility for the piggyback transportation. The team examined what position piggyback transport could take in the market of international transport and looked into the readiness of NDPTL for facilitating such piggyback transport.

The expectation is that piggyback transport, if deployed widely on the NDPTL Regional Transport Network, can make the ND’s transport systems more efficient. It will reduce the number of heavy goods vehicles at the border crossings and so relieve one of major hurdles for trade development in the ND region. Road hauliers are facing long queues and waiting times when crossing the borders between the European Union and the Customs Union. 

A network of piggyback services can also contribute to the ambitions of reducing the impact of road transport on the environment. These ambitions are described in the European Commission’s 2011 “White Paper on Transport”. The White Paper presents EC’s vision for the future of the EU transport system and defines a policy agenda for the next decade. Its ambition is to have thirty per cent of road freight over 300 km shifted to these other modes such as rail by 2030, and more than 50 % by 2050. This would serve to achieve a targeted 60% reduction in CO2 emissions and an equivalent reduction in oil dependency. The EC foresees that multimodal transport, relying on waterborne and rail modes for long hauls, will have a more important role. NDPTL’s expectation is that the development of piggyback services in the ND-region can contribute to realization of environmental ambitions.

---