Back on solid ground

Disruptions at Piraeus port have proved a fillip for road and rail operators, writes Chris Lewis

Faced with a near paralysis of the country’s principal seaport Pireaus, many shippers and forwarders to Greece switched to overland services or strengthened existing rail and road services.

Ferrymasters is set to increase intermodal capacity from Belgium

Kuehne + Nagel (KN), for instance, now runs around 3,000 of its own blocktrains every year from northern Europe into the Balkan region, of which 39% of last year’s tonnage went to Greece. This is in addition to trucks and container shipments from both Europe and the Far East, explains national manager Frank Lehner.

While the trains must negotiate the tracks of several European countries and rail operators, the fact KN runs its own dedicated services is a big help, he says.

Another intermodal service that has benefited from troubles at Piraeus is Ferrymasters’ railsea-road operation from Belgium - so much so that a major upgrade is planned from mid-May.

"Last year, there were long interruptions to service at the port of Piraeus, and some of the traffic has stayed with us, " explains Bart Verbeke, P&O Ferrymasters’ intermodal division director.

"While the economic situation has had some impact, overall volumes to Greece are pretty stable.

"We’ve now made the decision to improve the service and increase capacity with a complete block train from Meuzen in Belgium to Brindisi in Italy."

The block train will eliminate two intermediate remarshalling points and cut journey times from Belgium to Italy from the current 48-58 hours to no longer than 36. The Crossrailoperated train will have the same locomotive throughout and will be one of the first freight trains passing through Italy not to be run by stateowned Tren Italia.

Because of capacity restrictions, the 17-wagon train will be reduced to 13 wagons at Novarra in northern Italy, with the detached wagons going on to Rome. Connections will also be available at the northern end of the route between Zeebrugge and Meuzen.

The boxes will be ferried from Brindisi to Patras from where they are currently trucked to Athens and other points in Greece. However, says Verbeke, the hope is that upgrade work on the Greek rail system will soon allow a train connection from Patras to Athens.

Road competition

At times during the past year, the railways struggled to cope with the extra business thrust upon them and some business was in turn diverted from rail to trucking, says Lehner.

But now, with the onset of recession, rail operators face stiff competition on prices from trucking companies, as well as from revived shortsea operations.

Arguably, many of the road services are also intermodal because most of them use ferry crossings across the Adriatic, such as Brindisi, to Patras. While some operators favour the allroad route to Greece, others, such as KN, find the ferry crossings improve speed, reliability and security.

Bulgaria-based truckers prefer the all-land route, and this certainly makes sense for traffic to and from Thessaloniki and the north of Greece, says Gary Lumb, general manager at Bradfordbased Andante Freight in the UK.

"In the past, we didn’t like using this option because trucks could get stuck at the borders and a seven-day journey could turn into 10 days, but now you can do the journey entirely on EU territory, " he says.

DSV uses a number of routes from northern and southern Italy

George Kachos, Athens branch director for DSV Road, Greece, says there are quite a few options from Italy. In the north, there is the Venice to Patras route, which tends to be a driver unacommpanied service. The south offers crossings from Ancona (most commonly used), Bari and Brindisi.

"Generally speaking, there is no problem getting space on the ferries, " says Kachos.

"In mid-summer there can be crowding on the ferries. At this time, the Italian port authorities allocate space and give priority to refrigerated trailers and tourists over standard trailers." But he adds this does not pose a problem for DSV as traffic is down slightly anyway during that season.

Local issues

Domestically, road operators in Greece face some challenges. It can take a couple of days to get to the Greek islands on ferries and the country’s often slow road network.

Greece may look relatively small on a map, but getting around the country can be quite time-consuming. "It’s not always a question of distance - it’s a question of time, " says Lehner.

The same is true of greater Athens, when rush hour congestion can drastically slow journeys that look relatively short on paper.

Greek geography makes it impossible for any forwarder to apply a general pan-Greek distribution system, adds Kachos.

In the mainland, mountains and poor road infrastructure make distribution and collection difficult. "It can take three hours to reach a regional capital 200km from Athens, and three more to reach a village 50km further on, " he says.

Besides geography, there is the directional imbalance with significantly more going into Greece than coming out. Greek exports such as fruit or olive oil tend to be seasonal whereas industrial goods moving the other way tend to be steady throughout the year.