north sea baltic corridor c. trautmann
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TransportTransport
North Sea-Baltic Corridor
European Coordinator Ms Catherine Trautmann
Corridor meeting at the TEN-T Days 2015 Riga, 22 June 2015
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Corridor characteristics
● 8 Member States
● 17 urban nodes
● 16 airports
● 32 ports
● 17 RRT
● 8 border crossings
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Critical issues● Cross-border links: missing UIC standard gauge railway line from
Tallinn to the Polish border through the Baltic states
● Rail: freight traffic passing through urban nodes, port hinterland connections
● Interoperability: ERTMS in place on three cross-border sections only; differences in axle load and train length
● Ports and Motorways of the Sea: capacity issues in ports, hinterland connections
● Inland waterways: capacity issues concerning locks and bridges
● Road: bottlenecks especially in and around urban nodes; road safety, availability of alternative fuels
● Airport connections by road and by rail
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High investment needs
● 291 investments have been identified which would be needed for the development of the North Sea-Baltic Corridor until 2030
o 122 railways projects, o 67 road projects, o 82 port and inland waterways projects,o 20 airports projects.
● Estimated total volume of investments of around 133 billion EUR (at 2014 prices)
● Prioritisation of investments is of utmost importance and a competitive planning and financing framework needs to be set up
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Coordinator's role and work methods
● Meetings held with national Transport Ministers along the Corridor
● Inclusive approach involving relevant stakeholders through the meetings of the Corridor Forum and working groups, as well as through bilateral contacts
● Contacts with regional initiatives
● On-site visits
● Focus on innovation, ICT and ITS as well as logistics
● Contacts with MEPs taken on specific critical issues and to be developed further
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Focus on Rail Baltic
● One of the six biggest priority projects in the TEN-T with highest EU added value
● Joint Venture RB Rail AS set up in October 2014, fully responsible for coordination, implementation and facilitation of the project
● Intergovernmental Task Force meets on a regular basis
● Project completion foreseen in 2025 in the Baltic States
● Joint communication at the TEN-T Days in Riga
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Corridor priorities
● timely implementation of the missing cross-border link – the Rail Baltic project;
● the major bottleneck of the Amsterdam Sea Lock;
● the hinterland connection of the main ports – by rail, road and inland waterways;
● the interoperability of the railway network in close cooperation with the "North Sea – Baltic" Rail Freight Corridor;
● Coordinated deployment of ERTMS in line with its European added value
● the importance of the main urban nodes, particularly the multi-corridor nodes.
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What happened so far?● 4 Corridor Forum meetings held in Brussels in 2014 with gradual
involvement of Member States, infrastructure managers of all corridor transport modes (rail, road, ports, airports) and Regions
● 2 Working Group sessions (Ports / Regions)
● Final corridor study with detailed analysis of corridor presented in December 2014
● Corridor work plan, based on results of corridor study, elaborated by European Coordinator and presented to Member States on 22 December 2014 for their approval
● May 2015: Approval of corridor work plan by all Member States concerned
● 16 June 2015: Hearing in the European Parliament
● Today: presentation of the work plan to the wider public
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What happens next?
Further development of the corridor study
●Selection of consultant for further development of the corridor study and support to the European Coordinator currently ongoing
●Aim: to deepen and consolidate the analysis of 2014
● Update and deepening of the project list for all modes with the aim to prioritize investments (detailed description of individual projects and their timing and costs; analysis of projects' feasibility and maturity; identification of their added value for the corridor; …)
● Enhancing coherence between the core network corridors and horizontal priorities ERTMS and MoS; consolidating the exchange with the RFC
● Covering issues that were only marginally touched upon so far, notably innovation, ITS, sustainability and interoperability
● Dealing with economic, social and environmental impacts, noise, greenhouse gas emissions and climate change
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What happens next?
Continuation of the corridor process / Revision of the corridor work plan
●5th Corridor Forum: Tuesday 29 September 2015, Brussels – inception report by the consultant on methodology to improve the corridor study
●6th Corridor Forum: Tuesday 8 December 2015, Brussels – presentation of first progress report of the consultant
●7th Corridor Forum: March 2016 – intermediate report on further development of the project list
●Two further Corridor Forum meetings in 2016 in view of first update of the corridor work plan – process to continue in 2017 and 2018
●Working group sessions on specific items still to be decided (Ports, Regions, cross-border issues…)
●June 2016: Update of corridor work plan