Pol-Corridor: Assessment of Demand for the Blue Shuttle Train’s Services in North and South European Markets

This report describes the prospects of a new trans-European freight supply network stretching from the Nordic countries to Central, Southern and South-eastern Europe. The northern part of the corridor consists of sea-land connections from Sweden, Finland and Norway to an intermodal hub in Poland. From there, the corridor connects via a regularly scheduled block train - the "Blue Shuttle Train" - to an intermodal hub in Vienna. The southern part of the corridor comprises the existing land connections to destinations in most of Central, Southern and South-eastern Europe. This report covers results of Work Package 1 of the Pol-Corridor project, assessing the demand for Blue Shuttle Train's services in North and South European markets. The main objectives of the work were to assess the freight volumes currently shipped in the North-South direction and to forecast the international freight volumes in the near future. First, the assessment of Pol-Corridor's potential for carrying Finnish flows and the method for assessment are presented. Most of the potential destination countries can be identified as well as the countries that are insignificant for the Pol-Corridor concept. Also the maximum and minimum potential for Blue Shuttle Train and the issue of balanced transportation in North-South directions are discussed. Second, the potential for Nordic flows has been assessed by using the same method presented with the Finnish flows. This assessment provides deeper insight to possible future development. Scenarios projected till the beginning of 2006 are defined in order to probe the business potential for Blue Shuttle Train. It can be concluded that Pol-Corridor and Blue Shuttle Train will be an alternative for international north-south logistics provided if either of the following clauses is fulfilled: 1) many countries at the south-end of Pol-Corridor will direct their Northbound flows to Blue Shuttle Train instead of to trailers on roads or 2) Austrian and Italian exports will use Blue Shuttle Train and Pol-Corridor in their Northbound transport.