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NETHERLANdS – INLANd SHIppING


The inland shipping industry, in common with the rest of the Rotterdam freight sector has suffered in the recession but the future is very bright. So says Maira van Helvoirt container specialist at the Central Bureau for the Rhine and Inland Shipping (CBRB). Rotterdam’s plans for modal shift along could boost the volume of waterways containerised traffic fivefold or more, she believes. “One of the conditions for


being able to build Maasvlake II (the Port of Rotterdam’s new offshore deepsea terminal) is that 45% of containerised inland traffic should be by barge by about 2033, compared with 37% currently,” she explains. Given that Maasvlakte II will also vastly increase Rotterdam’s total annual box throughput, that would mean a massive surge in the amount of box traffic using the waterways. The Dutch Government


is likewise keen to promote waterway transport, and the shipping community is by and large willing to play its part and support it. However, there are concerns


that the barging system is not currently as efficient as it could be and that time is lost unnecessarily. As one Rotterdam freight forwarder told FBJ, “There is a big contradiction in the Government’s thinking. On the one hand, they’re prepared to subsidise waterways. On the other hand, as far as the customer is concerned, the subsidised freight rate can be completely negated because we end up paying more in demurrage charges because it takes so much longer to deliver the container and get it back again.” It’s not entirely clear what


would happen if the Port of Rotterdam fails to achieve the required modal split. If the Government were to penalise the port, the latter could no doubt successfully lay the blame at the Government’s door for failing to create the right conditions.


Meanwhile, the Netherlands’


inland transport scene is fiercely competitive. The country’s many truckers


are only too willing to drop their prices in the current financial climate and there are now a number of private rail operators also hungry for business. Achieving a 45% market share


“will be quite a challenge,” Maira van Helvoirt continues. “It’s not just a matter of finding five times as much equipment and people but also having to organise things in a more clever way. The current barging system in Rotterdam is extended to its limits.” The existing system grew up organically, and at a time when barges were not expected to amount for much more than 5% of total inland traffic in Rotterdam. The main problem with the


current set-up, she says is that barges currently have to use the same terminals as deepsea and shortsea vessels and 20 metre- high gantries are not the most efficient way to load and unload small barges. The ideal solution, from the


CBRB’s point of view, would be to create a dedicated barge facility at the Kramer Terminal, in between the existing Maasvlakte I and the new Maasvlakte II terminal. There are however some difficulties. One is land access to the new barge facility. The ideal route would be via ECT’s private road but the terminal operator has so far resisted this idea. Legal discussions are continuing. The only alternative would be


traffic to move from the deepsea terminals to the new barge facility on the public roads, but this would be unattractive because of traffic congestion, possible customs complications and because all containers would have to comply with public road weight limits. The new terminal, if built,


would not handle all inland waterway boxes but mainly the smaller parcels of cargo of up to around ten boxes. The larger


The Dutch governent has become a great lover of inland shipping


quantities would, as now, be moved directly between deepsea terminal and barges, but the smaller amounts could be more efficiently handled by being fed to or from the new dedicated barge terminal. This would avoid the need for barge operators to make a ‘milk round’ of several deepsea terminals picking up boxes in twos and threes at each one, CBRB believes. However, given that the


deepsea operators, along with the rest of the Rotterdam freight community, stand to benefit from the new system, it’s important that the barge operators are not left to bear the entire cost of developing the new system, Maira van Helvoirt stresses.


Investment is a difficult


area in an industry still largely dominated by owner-operators or small companies owning at most a few barges. With the best will in the world, it is very hard for these companies to take a long term view. The inland shipping industry


also encompasses a very diverse range of operations ranging from 600teu or more capacity push barge operators to the 32teu vessels used on the much more restricted Brabant canal network in the Tilburg/Eindhoven area. A new computerised planning


system would further boost efficiency, she continues. “At the moment, a delay in one


location can have a domino effect and at the moment it can often be just ‘planned chaos’.” However, a new management information system is being tested through 65 GPS-equipped barges, “giving them the means to control their assets or, if there is a problem somewhere, make other arrangements”. New inland terminals are planned, many of them at inland


locations such as Moerdijk or Venlo but there is also a scheme to build a container ‘Transferium’ (transfer station) at Alblasserdam near Rotterdam city with the express purpose of reliving traffic congestion on the chronically congested A15 motorway that links Europort with the rest of the country. Whether freight can be persuaded to switch to barge for such a short trip is a matter of some debate, Maira van Helvoirt admits. “Some people are convinced, others say it will never work unless you have road pricing – which is not something the Dutch Government is keen on, at least at the moment.” But brewer Heineken is in


serious talks about switching the road leg of its entire North American trade to barge, which would give the Transferium critical mass. Interestingly, the Transferium


has also been anticipated by a private operator who has set up a small-scale ‘Ridderkirk Transferium’ in the same area.


ISSUE 1 2011 Barges gear up for a massive surge Canals are seen, quite rightly,


as a ‘green’ form or transport but the inland waterway industry is mindful of the need to adopt the latest lean engine technology and maintain its environmental credentials, adds Robert Tieman, who coordinates environmental policy at the CBRB. “Certain types of engine will


no longer be allowed by 2025, but the penetration of new types of engine takes time.” The barge industry is however introducing its equivalent of the Euro 5 standard for trucks, while other possibilities are compressed natural gas, diesel- electric propulsion, or even hydrogen, says Tieman. But because of the fragmented


nature of the industry and predominance of small firms, take up of clean technology is a slow process, especially as barges and equipment tend to have long operating lives, unlike trucks. “We are however lobbying government to take measures that will speed the process up,” adds Tieman.


Itchy shippers are sign of recovery


A sure sign that the European economy is on the mend is that shippers are once again asking if their containers will arrive on time, says Mark Jansen of Embassy Freight. “Two years ago, no one asked if things were on schedule; but now consignees want their cargo within a couple of days of arrival because they’ve sold all they have. We’re going back to having floating stock,” he explains. There has also been an upsurge among internet traders in the Netherlands; the Dutch are a famously entrepreneurial lot. In fact, quite a lot of Embassy’s business has come by way of the information section of its website. A small trader, Googling to find out what the term ‘LCL’


or ‘FOB’ means, often finds the answer by way of the Embassy website. In a city where there are an estimated 1,000 forwarders – and that figure doesn’t include the one-man bands – you need to be innovative to survive. Embassy Freight could be described as a franchise. There are 65 Embassy offices worldwide, most of then independent companies but they can combine forces in order to increase their buying power with shipping lines, for example. But individual offices are


free to choose their own overseas agents, if they wish. The Rotterdam office is based in Vlaardingen, just outside the city. Since Embassy Freight Rotterdam was set up in 2004,


it has take over fellow freight operator Hooymeijer. Embassy moved into the Hooymeijer offices but the latter company has retained its own identity and deals with trucking and stevedoring, while Embassy handles the forwarding side. It handles a lot of toiletry traffic and also offers a consolidation service from the Far East. “Taking over Hooymeijer


has allowed us to offer a more complete package and it has also made our own costs more transparent,” says Jansen. “We can also offer customers more solution.” Many of Embassy’s customers


are medium-sized firms that need someone to deal with their logistics headaches.


A new star in the East


M-Star goes to the places where others fear to tread, says Jan Euwema. “We do a lot of traffic to places like Kazakhstan and even to Siberia,” explains the business development manager of the Rotterdam- based forwarder. “Many of the big forwarders come to us for a solution because they don’t have the network there.” M-Star even offers services to places like Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq, as well as Mongolia. Offices in Georgia opened in 2010 – business has picked up strongly since the Caucasus war - and M-Star has partners throughout the CIS region, as well as an office in Hong Kong. There are plans for more in central Asia. M-Star also does import services, which are a bit more mainstream and also, through sister company Falconex, central America, including the former Dutch colony of Surinam. The latter is mainly an export market. Last year, M-Star moved al the fittings for the country’s first supermarket, for instance. The past two years have been tough, as they have for all freight firms, says Euwema, “but we now


see a recovery and we have quite positive feelings about the new year.” Freight rates have increased again - up 50% to Moscow, for example - which is a positive sign for the market. The high oil price, while bad news in most respects, is good news for the Russian economy.


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