Germany : Intermodal traffic expansion for the incumbant Kombiverkehr

Analysis of Mediarail.be - Signalling technician and railways observer
See also the Trainworld on facebook of Mediarail.be, also Twitter and LinkedIn

12/01/2016

(from Kombiverkehr press center)

Kombiverkehr KG, Europe's largest provider of intermodal transport solutions, has seen in the new year by expanding the capacity of its national transport services to and from Hamburg and Germany's Baltic Sea ports. Capacity has been expanded and adapted on the routes to and from Hamburg and Lübeck in order to cater specifically for a further increase in the demand for combined rail and ferry transport services to the countries of Scandinavia. « We have switched to the private rail transport operator Green Cargo for our traction services as it provides onward rail connections from Malmö and Trelleborg, both within Sweden and to and from Norway; these are coordinated with ferry arrival times, thus allowing our customers in the forwarding and logistics sector to benefit from reliable end-to-end transport handling. This enables us to boost capacity in northern European transport in line with demand. We expect the year 2016 to bring significant growth in consignment volumes in this transport segment » says Sales Manager Peter Dannewitz. Kombiverkehr KG currently provides around 200 weekly train departures in direct services to and from northern Europe via the German Baltic Sea ports of Kiel, Lübeck and Rostock and over the fixed crossing.

Kiel. Ferry to and from Scandinavia (photo Kombiverkehr KG)

Kombiverkehr will increase the frequency of services from four to five departures a week in each direction between the terminals in Karlsruhe and Ludwigshafen on the one hand and Hamburg-Billwerder on the other. From 12 January, freight forwarders will for the first time have the option of dropping off containers, semi-trailers and swap bodies bound for Karlsruhe and Ludwigshafen in Hamburg on the newly introduced departure day of Tuesday. They can do the same again in the opposite direction a day later on Wednesday, the other new departure day. In both cases, the trains travel to the destination terminals overnight.  After a journey lasting between nine and 13 hours – depending on the route – the loading units are ready for collection early in the morning prior to delivery around the region or for onward transport in Kombiverkehr's rail network. So-called short shuttle trains operate via Hamburg to reach the Baltic Sea ports of Kiel, Lübeck and Rostock on the same day, where numerous ferry services are available to Scandinavia and the Baltic.

Toutes les unités intermodales sont acceptées (photo Kombiverkehr KG)

More flexible management and thus improved utilisation of existing capacity are the result of a new production concept on the Cologne – Hamburg/Lübeck v.v. route. The two-group train was previously split before the Hamburg-Billwerder terminal. Each wagon group thus reached the scheduled destination terminal in northern Germany separately. Depending on the booking situation, this did not always make the best possible use of space on the train. This will be a thing of the past with effect from the second calendar week, however, as the wagon groups will no longer be separated in future and the whole train will be loaded and unloaded in both terminals. « This innovative system will enable us to make more efficient use of capacity, which will ultimately benefit our customers when booking their consignments »  says a confident Peter Dannewitz.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------