By Richard Morton, Projects Director, Haven Gateway

DUISBURG can accurately be described as Germany’s most western port – many ships sail directly to the city from the North Sea, which is 250 kms away.

Duisburg is also the world’s busiest inland port; it handles everything from containers to steel to dry bulks, and has long acted as a vital transhipment hub linking the major seaports of Antwerp, Rotterdam, Amsterdam and Zeebrugge to the European hinterland.

Hardly surprising, then, that Duisburg, with its wide range of cargoes, added-value logistics activities and clearly ‘green’ credentials, are of great interest to the partners in Dryport, who are examining how hinterland intermodal freight transport hubs can best operate to cope with traffic flows and the challenges of port congestion.

During a specially organised visit and tour of Duisburg, the Dryport partners, including Haven Gateway representatives, went to Hutchison Ports’ DeCeTe Duisburger Container Terminal (DCT), and the offices and operations of Duisport, the port authority for Duisburg.

DCT’s team shared their experiences of operating a trimodal terminal – served by rail, road and inland waterway – and explained terminal layout, organisation and the incorporation of cargo security within an inland port operation. We also learned about the added value logistics services they have developed, including the pick-up of containers at the seaport by barge or train, handling and storage, and delivery to the final destination. The terminal also provides storage for full containers, with a special area for those containing hazardous cargoes, a depot for empties, maintenance, repairs and cleaning – and it can also handle customs formalities.

Around 12 million consumers live and work in a 100 km radius of Duisburg. DCT serves as a hub for this market as well as a starting point for outbound European cargo. As well as direct connections to Rotterdam, Antwerp and Zeebrugge, DCT is also a shortsea terminal; it handles shipping services to the UK ports of Tilbury and Goole, via the Rhine and the North Sea.

With the Duisport authority, there was a tour of facilities and discussions about the way in which rail services to the seaports and into the hinterland – as far as the Czech Republic – are organised. The authority also described how it, and its private terminal tenants, are developing new business ideas with customers and creating new cargo routes and better links.

The Duisport Group is expecting Duisburg’s total cargo volumes to reach 130 million tonnes for 2011 – about 64 million tonnes of this being attributable to its own port operations, and the rest to the terminals of its private tenants.

On ‘home ground’, the Haven Gateway and Babergh District Council, joint Dryport partners, are continuing with the Destination and Origin Study being carried out as part of our work in the project. This study into where trucks serving the Haven Ports are coming from and going to, is expected to deliver its first results in early 2012. The findings will provide the evidence we need in order to promote at the highest levels of government the need for more, and better, infrastructure related to ports and logistics activities in this important subregion.