Spatial and Transport Development in European Corridors - Example Corridor 22, Hamburg - Athens
Projekt abgeschlossenInfrastructure policy has to affect transport carriers and regions equally, and to show a clear commitment to prioritising both the planning preparation and the implementation of action concepts for the main European axes. There is therefore a demand for the integrated investigation of transport and spatial development for future sustainable infrastructure policies. A large-scale applied infrastructure policy has not yet been initiated. Neither has it been possible to shift a significant share of goods transport from the roads to the rails or to significantly increase the proportion of public transport in total person transport. Settlement development is still land-use intensive and based on the automobile, contradicting sustainable spatial development concepts.
Until recently, the main obstacle to better coordinated infrastructure development in Europe could be seen as an institutional deficit, since no institution at the European, national or regional level had a comprehensive overview of the challenges to be overcome. However, the new EGTC Committee (European Grouping of Territorial Cooperation) is expected to provide this in the future. Its central task will be to bring the strong and increasing imbalance of goods transport in harmony with that of passenger transport. In order to do so, the European continent needs to achieve a better distribution of flows of maritime global goods transport and address its overburdened hinterland connections.
The Orient / East-Med Corridor, Hamburg – Athens, is of particular interest due to its high relevance for passenger and commercial transport (especially the Greek harbours of Athens and Thessaloniki as well as the Adriatic harbours). It further provides an example of genuine infrastructural deficits such as missing links and bottlenecks. Once established, the Corridor will connect the eastern Member States of the expanded EU with a main railway axis. The affected parts of completed route sections will be built through financial support from the ISPA Programme (Structure Political Instrument to Prepare for Joining the EU).
Finalising the Corridor investment project will create a standardised railway network built to the same norms throughout. At the eastern end, the network divides into two branch lines, one leading to the harbours of Constanta on the Black Sea and the other to Thessaloniki and Athens. The project is expected to lead to an increase in railway capacity, especially in goods transport. At the same time, travel times and costs for goods and passenger travel could sink considerably. A rise of 25 % to 50 % in cross-border transport between Member States is expected.
Aims and research questions
Methodological challenges are posed by the variety of planning cultures found along the corridor and interrelated obstacles to communication, participation and cooperation. Taking a problem-oriented approach, the IAK could analyse the corridor as a test-bed and spatial research lab, bridging the missing link between planning theory and practice.
With regard to the aspired EU membership of Serbia and the recent economic downturn in Greece, the corridor could make a sustainable contribution to territorial cohesion and strengthen ties to this part of Europe. The IAK seeks to address political decision makers (EU, nation states), regional policymakers, planners, practitioners and scientists by:
- providing scientifically based, important overviews,
- identifying hot spots / bottlenecks,
- drafting an integrated Strategy for the Corridor,
- exchanging knowledge and information with the Corridor Platform / Corridor Coordinator.
In addition to advancing the spatial and transport development of the Orient / East-Med Corridor, the following key spatial science questions are of special interest:
- What contribution can be made to European cohesion by a large-scale strategy for creating the integrated spatial and transport development of a highly productive transnational rail connection between Hamburg and Athens?
- How can the Orient / East-Med Corridor be evaluated with regard to energy and climate, and how would the construction of this trans-European corridor contribute to balanced and sustainable transport and infrastructure development in Europe?
- What methods, instruments and processes are appropriate for developing large-scale strategies for integrated spatial and transport development?
- How should actor-suitable recommendations be developed at the European, national, regional and local levels, and what would an exemplary recommendation look like?
Position paper on the TEN-T Orient/East-Med Corridor published
The international working group of ARL, chaired by Prof. Dr. Bernd Scholl, ETH Zurich from 2015 until 2018 addressed open questions and challenges regarding the spatial and railway development of the TEN-T Orient/East-Mediterranean Corridor (OEM) Hamburg – Athens. Recently, important insights were published by the ARL as position paper.
From the working group's point of view, the Orient/East-Med Corridor is of utmost importance for the future cohesion of Europe. With its length of more than 2'000 km it connects the strong economic zones of the western EU member states to the prospering capital regions of the southeastern EU member states. The position paper includes the “Assessment positions” of four years of intensive work as well as a draft for the future actions (“positions and recommendations”). According to the experts, the further development of the corridor is of strategic importance:
15./16.02.2018 Hamburg-Athens corridor – the meeting in Hamburg
The sixth official meeting of the International Working Party «Spatial and Transport Development along European Corridors: An Example of the Corridor 22, Hamburg-Athens» took place in Hamburg, on the 15th and 16th February 2018.
Hamburg as a starting/ending point of the entire corridor is a significant logistic hub for a large portion of the Hamburg-Athens corridor. Two invited guests highlighted this role, however, also pointed out that the port of Hamburg is facing stagnation in transshipment, and even may face a decrease in importance in the forthcoming years until 2030.
Dr. Makait, CEO of MWP GmbH explained that the port of Hamburg is the main hub for sea-trade from or to eastern Germany, south-eastern neighbour countries and the Baltic sea. The port benefits of its strong hinterland connections, but is also limited by the restricted accessibility for very large ships. Since the concentration process to less but stronger alliances in the shipping sector is going on, changes in the routes of these market-dominating alliances result in significant changes of transshipment volumes in the affected ports. Against this background, the main growth in transshipment along the North Sea is expected in the ports better accessible by seaside like Wilhelmshaven or Rotterdam.
International Working Group “Corridors” in Sofia
The fifth meeting of the International Working Group «Spatial and Transport Development along European Corridors: An Example of the Corridor 22, Hamburg–Athens» took place in Sofia, on the 20th and 21st November 2017.
Bulgaria’s capital Sofia is an important node connecting the national east-west transport relations from the Black Sea with Serbia and FYROM as well as Romania and Greece in the north-south relation. Bulgaria is facing huge challenges in modernizing its transport infrastructure.
Two experts of the National Railway Infrastructure Company (NRIC) informed about the ongoing modernization of the main railway lines. The upgrading on the national east-west rail axes connecting Sofia with the Black Sea and Turkey via Plovdiv has advanced well and will be completed within a few years. Due to financial limitations, the upgrading of the international connections to Serbia, FYROM, Greece and Rumania is only proceeding gradually, but will gain importance in the next years. Due to the comparably low demand single track lines are sufficient on most sections, a proposed new route Sofia – Mezdra is unlikely to be constructed in near future.
27/28.04.2017: Hamburg–Athens corridor – the meeting in Belgrade
The fourth official meeting of the International Working Party of experts gathered around the ARL project «Spatial and Transport Development along European Corridors: An Example of the Corridor 22, Hamburg–Athens» took place in Belgrade, on the 27th and 28th April 2017.
As the territorial scope of this project is slightly different than the route officially covered by the EU TEN-T policy framework, the workshop was held in Belgrade, the capital of Serbia – the country that has been attempting to become a full EU member state for years now. Therefore, the most important strategic infrastructural and spatial planning projects have been discussed during the workshop.
24/25.11.2016: IAK Hamburg–Athens corridor – the meeting in Athens
The third official meeting of the International Working Party of experts gathered around the ARL project «Spatial and Transport Development along European Corridors: An Example of the Corridor 22, Hamburg–Athens» took place in Athens, on the 24th and 25th November 2016.
As Athens is considered the starting/end point of the entire corridor, the meeting was devoted to elucidating the current challenges in the domains of spatial and transport development, observed from various perspectives – from transnational to local.
The representatives of the PCT (Piraeus Container Terminal), the largest terminal of the COSCO (Chinese Ocean Shipping Group Company) in Europe, provided an overview of the current investments in port and railway infrastructure in Greece, as well as of the initiatives for upgrading the railway network in South-Eastern Europe.
