Last year produced a little-noticed milestone -- for the first time, trucks carried less than 500f the containers transported to and from Rotterdam's largest terminal. The main reason: an increase in the number of containers carried on river barges. Container-on-barge shipment has had mixed success in the U.S., where it has flopped repeatedly on the Mississippi River system but has succeeded on the Columbia-Snake River system in the Pacific Northwest, and with feeder services along the East Coast.
Nowhere has the concept been more successful than in Europe, where barges have combined low rates, reliable schedules and efficient vessels and transfer facilities to move several million TEUs a year along the Rhine and other rivers. They offer lower rates than trucks, and aren't hobbled by Europe's increasingly congested highways.Europe Combined Terminals, which handled 4.4 million of the 6.3 million TEUs that moved through Rotterdam last year, reported that barges carried 390f its throughput in 2000, compared with 36% the previous year. Eight years ago, barges accounted for slightly over one-fourth of ECT's traffic. Trucking's share fell from 50% to 48%, while rail's share slipped to 13 0.000000rom 14%, despite introduction of new intermodal rail services between Rotterdam and inland points.
Willem Scholten, head of Rotterdam Municipal Port Management, cites round-the-clock availability of in-creasingly efficient barge transport as a key asset in competition between his city's port and Northern Europe rivals.
Rotterdam, however, isn't the only port where container-on-barge movement is important. Antwerp said its container-on-barge traffic last year jumped by 17%, to 1.52 million TEUs. That total was 370f the 4.1 million TEUs handled at the Belgian port. Trucking, though still dominant, increased by only 8%.
The Rhine is the main inland waterway conduit for containers. Inland container terminals provide smooth transfer of containers to and from river barges, and there is ample volume for frequent, scheduled service. As congestion on Europe's highways and railroads has increased, barge operators have found new markets.
Until a few years ago, most coastwise container traffic between Rotterdam and Antwerp moved by rail or truck. Now barges carry 850,000 TEUs a year between the ports. Once regarded as an oddity, barges are now an integral part of the intermodal transportation through northern European ports.
Container-barge operations have undergone radical consolidation, with smaller owner-operators replaced by large transport firms. Rotterdam-based EWT, which transports over 21 million tons of iron ore down the Rhine annually, also owns container carriers Rhinecontainer and Interrhein. Another Rhine operator, Combined Container Service, is owned by Germany's Rhenus.
The biggest customers for inland shipping are the ocean carriers. They use trucks, barges and, to a lesser extent, rail to deliver their boxes to inland points primarily in Germany and Switzerland. Many carriers have long-term contracts with barge companies that operate shuttle services down the Rhine and to Antwerp.
Shippers also have influenced the growth of container-on-barge shipment, which is viewed as more environmentally friendly than land transportation. Heineken, the Dutch beer giant, switched from trucks and trains to barges to haul its export beer from domestic breweries to container ships in Rotterdam. The resulting good publicity prompted rivals Bavaria Breweries and Grolsch to follow suit. In Germany, prominent shippers such as BMW and Volkswagen also opt for barges to emphasize their commitment to the environment.
But the main appeal of inland shipping is that it is cheaper than truck or rail and that with the inland carriers' frequent shuttle services, there's no transit-time penalty.
Barge capacity is growing. The largest units can carry 374 TEUs. Inland terminals also are getting bigger: Britain's P&O Ports and Duisburg, the world's largest inland port, are jointly building a terminal with annual capacity of 200,000 TEUs. Expansion will enable the terminal to handle 400,000 TEUs a year and accommodate an innovative new inland container ship with a 470-TEU capacity.
The industry also is trading up from simple point-to-point transport contracts to providing additional contract-logistics services. Panalpina, the Swiss forwarding giant whose strengths are in air and sea freight, recently teamed up with Rhenus to market contract logistics services for the automobile, consumer goods and chemical industries.
Container-barge operators also are marketing inland shipping as part of an overall transport package. Combined Container Service (CCS), which handles more than 350,000 TEUs a year, offers a 'RhineRail' service linking Rotterdam and Antwerp with Dresden, Leipzig and Munich with a combination of barge, rail and truck.
There is pent-up demand for in-land shipping on smaller rivers and canals from Rotterdam to Belgium and Frances, according to Kees de Vries, director of Schuttevaer, the umbrella organization for inland navigation in the Netherlands.
Shallow canal depths and low bridges limit capacity to 80-TEU vessels up to the Belgian-French border and 24-TEU ships on the French network to Paris. But owners are responding with new designs, such as the 32-TEU Neokemp container barge, which is designed for small waterways with restricted headroom. The Neo-kemp, also known as a watertruck, has two propellers for forward propulsion and can turn 360 degrees on the spot with the aid of a third propeller. CCS already is using three of these vessels on a regular liner service between Antwerp and the lower Rhine.
The industry suffered a major setback a few years ago when the French government scrapped the project for a new Rhine-Rhone canal that would have opened a direct link between Rotterdam and Marseilles. And the Rhine-Main-Danube canal linking the North and Black seas has never lived up to expectations. It was closed by NATO bombing of Serbian bridges during the Kosovo conflict.
Meanwhile, barge operators are bracing for an assault by railroads. The $4 billion Betuwe line, a freight-only high speed corridor linking Rotterdam's cargo terminals to the German rail network, is scheduled to open in 2005 or 2006, and the Dutch, Belgian and German governments have started negotiations over the reopening of the Iron Rhine railway linking Antwerp to the Ruhr industrial belt.
But container-on-barge transportation has achieved critical mass in Europe, and it appears likely to continue to gain market share from trucks and trains.