DYNAMICS OF MARITIME TRANSPORT IN THE BALTIC SEA: REGIONALISATION

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1 DYNAMICS OF MARITIME TRANSPORT IN THE BALTIC SEA: REGIONALISATION AND MULTIMODAL INTEGRATION Arnaud Serry Associate professor in geography, University of Orleans Abstract The Baltic Sea Region appears as a specific circulation space crossed by many formal or informal networks. Ports, maritime transport and the entire shipping cluster are crucially important in the Baltic Sea Region. After the collapse of the USSR, the Baltic Sea has recovered its role as contact area between East and West. So since 1991, the Baltic maritime and ports world redials to meet the global maritime system requirements. Several interrogations arise concerning the current developments of the regional port system. In addition, the Baltic Sea is characterized by an interlocking of scales. Consequently, an analysis of the ports restructuration within the Baltic area can t avoid of a multiscalar methodology. At the global level, traffic s reorganisation generated a standardization of the Baltic Sea, responding to the dominant hub-and-spoke system. Intra-regional reality is quite different. The discourses on the Baltic unity are often based on the importance of maritime trade but there is an important regional diversity At the Eurasian scale, Baltic ports are no more margins of the European Union, but new crossroads in global intermodal flows. Keywords: Baltic Sea, port, regionalization, multimodal, maritime transport 1. Introduction 1.1. Background The Baltic Sea is one of the world's busiest seas. Around 8 % of the world's maritime transportations are carried out in the region. Navigation in the Baltic Sea is challenging due to its relative shallowness, narrow navigation routes, and ice cover in wintertime. The transportation volumes in the Baltic Sea have increased significantly in recent years and this trend is expected to continue in the future [1]. Traffic growth is one of the main characteristic of the development of maritime transportation in the Baltic Sea during the last 20 years. In those years, ports needed modernizing, expanding, deepening, beginning to handle news kinds of cargo as the traditional liquid and dry bulk transported in the region. Indeed, transportation of containerized cargos has been intensively developing over the last decades. Container logistics comprises more than just the overseas transport that is carried out by container vessels. Moreover, also stuffing, and storing containers as well as its hinterland transportation are included in the container logistics. In such a situation of a large increase in trade and freight transport volumes and in which the Baltic Sea region was facing a major economic restructuring, efforts to achieve more integrated and multimodal transport has appeared. 1.2 Purpose of the study 1

2 The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the maritime transport organization in the region. The approach is mainly through port traffics. This study is therefore based on maritime and rail transport statistics. It also relies on the analysis of transport networks and, more particularly, on regular lines. Moreover, the mapping of traffics establishes a new perception the Baltic Sea. Mapped maritime and port reality is a useful tool to criticism this commonly accepted situation. Besides this approach, the study also focuses on the integration of ports in the Eurasian landbridge, east-west interconnected corridor. A specific focus is on the Eastern Baltic shore, which includes Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Russia. The cargo flows from Russia and the CIS are the main driver of sea cargo flows in the region. Russia, being a significant natural resources exporter and an importer of consumer goods, drives the growth in the region. So, the eastern Baltic ports are positioning themselves as potential privileged spaces for the development of multimodality Methodology of the study The research was carried out as a desktop research and a statistical analysis which has required the construction of a statistical database on Baltic Sea ports. The purpose of the desk research was to make a review of the existing literature. Most of the facts about the transport/handling volumes presented in this study have been based on written sources of Scandinavian, Baltic and French origin. One of the first benefits of this approach is as follows: the literature is quite rare for the entire Baltic Sea. There are mainly spatial or thematic approaches. For instance, studies about the Gulf of Finland are numerous, mainly carried by finish researchers. Thematic approaches are often centred on oil transportation, environmental interrogations and passenger or ferry traffic. The aim of statistical analysis was to enable a comprehensive approach to regional ports, through the construction of a wide-ranging and evolutionary database on the ports of the Baltic Sea. Statistical analysis was mainly based on Eurostat data but also on European Seaport Organisation s information. Furthermore, statistical sources, academic journals, periodicals, newspapers and Internet sites of different stakeholders (e.g. ports, operators and terminals) have been used as sources of information. In addition, some inquiries about the handled or transported in the Baltic Sea were sent by to terminals, ports and authorities. So, one of the contributions of the article is to work on maritime transport at the whole Baltic scale. Originality also lies in the linking of maritime transport and multimodal activities developments in the region Structure of the paper The paper is structured as follows. Part 2 contains the current state analysis of maritime traffic in the Baltic Sea Region. In this part, mainly resulting of the statistical analysis, appears the fact that Baltic Sea ports have common characteristics but also some differences in function of the location. Part 3 focuses on the trends of this spatial differentiation and on the undergoing regionalization: there is several different ports ranges in the Baltic Sea. In Part 4, the results of the study of maritime and multimodal 2

3 transport development in the region are presented, especially in regard to the dry-port concept and block trains. 2. Commons characteristics of the Baltic Sea 2.1. The context The geographical characteristics give to the Baltic Sea a central role in international trade relations: spatial link between the northern, western, central and Eastern Europe, trading hub defining the Baltic sea Geographical features There are four main ways to define the Baltic Sea Region (BSR): - A physical natural region, an area of 374,000 km2 and an average depth of 57 m. The majority of the Baltic's water comes from the many rivers of bordering countries, however, there are also periodic and ecologically significant inflows of saline water through the Kattegat. The Baltic Sea is home to many species of plants, animals and micro-organisms in a great variety of different habitats. Baltic Sea is known to be one of the northernmost seas of Europe which freezes every winter also but nowadays, despite the sea ice conditions, winter traffic accounts for one quarter of the annual traffic [2] ; - An economic functional region, emerging economic meso-region in Europe and gateway regarding the economic flows between the East and the West ; - A political administrative region, in which boundaries are often changing but in the 1990s developed the idea of integration; - A socio-cultural region, collective and invested histories and memories of Hansa and Northernness, boundary or transition zone between the East and the West Consequently, the Baltic Sea appears as a specific space, at the intersection of two regions. It is a dynamic space, and also a margin, less controlled than the central place, new European frontier (the gradients are the strongest on the shorter distance) and crossed by many networks, physical and institutional Historical background The Iron Curtain was dividing the Baltic Sea in two separated areas. At the end of the Soviet period, The Baltic Sea was only partially linked by transport networks. Disintegration of the USSR and adhesion of Baltic States to European Union made this one a border territory between Russia and EU. After the collapse of Former Soviet Union, the new boundary remained almost easy to cross. In the beginning of the 21th century, it became no more fuzzy but rather fixed [3]. In the 1990 s the transport sector was strongly affected by the geopolitical transformations. In subsequent years, the situation has normalized, but 2004 enlargement of EU changes the nature of the border with Former Soviet Union (FSU). It displaced the European Union border to the East, introducing a discontinuity in this area of the eastern Baltic. 3

4 The eastern shore of the BSR has undergone a transformation from planned economies to market orientation. The interest in the Baltic States originates from their importance as new markets within the European Union, and their transit function for trade with Russia The Baltic Sea region, a maritime region Major shipping routes serve the hubs of the world maritime circulatory organization. In Europe, maritime transportation is concentrated on the Northern Range. The other European facades, among which the Baltic Sea, are considered as secondary and served from these ports pivots via feedering services A secondary maritime facade The Baltic Sea is very transport-intense. Its share in world sea-borne trade is in the range of 8 per cent. The reason for this percentage is on one hand, the high internationalization of Baltic economies and, on other hand the pronounced logisticsintensity of leading industrial cluster in the Baltic Sea region and its hinterland. Furthermore, foreign trade of several Baltic Sea countries to a high extend is realized by sea transport rather than other transport modes. In Finland, for instance, the share of sea transport in foreign trade is 80 per cent [4]. Significant cargo flows in the Baltic region are aligned with the global shipping lines. In the Baltic we find all the cargoes and transport technologies, although in some sectors in a special expression reflecting the relative shorter sea distances and the limits for ship size, because of the maximal water depth in the sea s entrance (See table 1). The ships being able to come into the Baltic Sea have to fulfil the requirement of having the draught only below 17.5 meters. This is one of the reasons why the ports in the Baltic Sea region only attend short-sea shipping lines and feeder ships, which transport cargos from/to the hub ports of Europe (Rotterdam, Antwerp Bremerhaven and Hamburg) [5]. Table 1: Structure of Baltic Sea transport according to traffic relation General cargo Bulk cargo Passengers External traffic Feeder services Ro/ro services Medium size tankers and bulk carriers Cruise shipping Intra-baltic traffic Ro/ro services Handy and medium size tankers and bulk carriers Ferry lines Cruise shipping Ro-ro transport, handled by ferries and ro-ro cargo ships, typically represent Baltic internal transport which covers up to 80 per cent of total. Baltic external transport is dominating; its share in 2010 was 89 per cent. In these conditions, the port of Hamburg constitutes the centre of maritime trade, particularly in the area of the container [6]. In 2011, 88% of Baltic containers ports had at least one connection with Hamburg. For 81% of them, the north-german metropolis was one of the first three destinations in number of connections. 4

5 In fact, the Baltic Sea is not attractive enough for the direct calls of transoceanic ships: its situation in maritime dead-end, the weaknesses of volumes, and the fragmentation of nearby calls are some of the main causes. It is therefore served by a feeder network to the major European ports. Regular feeder lines are either circular, with coverage of a few ports, very often including St. Petersburg, either direct toward one or two ports Rapidly growing traffic The main shared element by the whole ports of the Baltic Sea is an unprecedented growth in their activities. Since the middle of the 1990s Baltic maritime transport increased considerably. The overall traffic in the Baltic Sea has almost doubled since 1997 (Figure 1), whereas in the same time the growth of the world seaborne trade was only approximately of 65 %. The compound annual growth rate in cargo handling from 1995 to 2010 was 3.2 per cent [5]. Figure 1: Maritime transport evolution in the BSR from 1997 to 2012 This growth of the maritime traffic in the Baltic Sea is essentially explained by three factors: - The world economic growth has led to an increase of the volume of maritime freight which is the main support of global trade; - The important geopolitical changes in the region have opened the eastern shore to the market economy and foster the development of new traffics, like manufactured goods to Russia. - Russian access to the world ocean is limited and has suffered from the port specialization inherited from the Soviet era. Russia needs the Baltic Sea to export its raw materials, principally oil product. In 2012, the total amount of cargo handled in the ports bordering the Baltic Sea was million tonnes. Around 42 % of the cargo was liquid bulk, 32 % other dry cargo and 26 % dry bulk. Measured by total cargo volume, Russia is the leading country in the 5

6 BSR, with a growing market share of a quarter (25%), followed by Sweden with a fifth (21%). Approximately 13 % went through Finnish ports, and the rest (42 %) through Latvian, Polish, Danish, German, Estonian and Lithuanian ports. The largest Baltic Sea ports (Figure 2) in 2010 by cargo volumes were Primorsk, St. Petersburg, Gothenburg, Klaipeda and Riga [1]. Figure 2: Baltic Sea main ports So, Baltic ports have experienced an increase in their traffic excepted only of Fredericia (- 7 % ), Helsingborg (- 14 %) and Ventspils (- 23 % ). The decline of Ventspils is easily explained by a reorientation of Russian exports, particularly oil exports to new Russian ports of the Gulf of Finland. Fredericia and Helsingborg, due to their location, face an intense competition from other ports, at the entrance of the Danish straits as Brofjorden and especially Gothenburg which is nowadays the main Swedish hub. The recent ex-nihilo creation of Russian ports (Primorsk, Ust-Luga) in the Gulf of Finland explains the explosion of their traffic over the period

7 Container traffic had the strongest growth followed by ro-ro cargoes and liquids, dry bulk increased only slightly and break bulk / other general cargo even decreased Oil products, the major freight in the Baltic Sea Maritime oil transportation in the region is not recent. According to cargo groups, liquid goods present the highest transport volumes, their share is summing up to more than 40 per cent. That mainly is raw oil and oil products, but also chemicals [1]. At present, 25 % of the vessels in the Baltic Sea are oil tankers or tankers carrying chemicals. In 2012, liquid bulk increased in volumes and totalled 319 million. The development of the maritime traffic in the Baltic Sea Region (BSR) is mainly due to the growth of Russian oils exportations. So, this build-up was mainly a result of growing liquid handling of Russian ports (+17%), in particular that of Ust-Luga, where the volumes grew more than four times compared to the previous year. Nearly 60 per cent of the tanker transport is Russian export going through the Russian ports of Primorsk, St. Petersburg, Kaliningrad and Vysotsk, but also in transit through Tallinn, Ventspils and Klaipeda (Figure 3). Figure 3: Baltic Sea ports cargo structure Oil traffic is nowadays more distributed between several ports even if Primorsk become a regional colossus, with 75 million tons of oil cargo in 2011 (25% of total Russian exports of oil). There are dedicated oil ports such as Primorsk, Kilpilahti-Skoldvik, and Butinge. Many ports have oil and oil products as the major cargo, including Ust-Luga, Gothenburg, Ventspils, Tallinn, Gdansk, and Vysotsk. In the southern ports of the Baltic, like Polish ports, liquid bulk is less dominant, and their activities are primarily comprised of dry bulk export and general merchandise import, with the exception of Gdansk, entrance door of oil products in Poland. The second largest group of cargoes is dry bulk (coal, iron ore, grain as well as fertilizers) which account for less than 30% of all transports. The dry bulk commodities 7

8 are always a non-negligible part of the structure of the port traffic, especially on the Eastern shore. Also in this sector Ust-Luga developed strongly, although Riga still represented the biggest dry bulk handling port within the BSR. This significant share of bulks in the traffic, especially hydrocarbons, strengthened the role of the tramping 1 in the BSR. The final group, called other cargo, includes break bulk and other general cargoes not included in the container and ro-ro segments. Here we find three sub-groups: Forestry products with about 50 per cent of the groups volume, then iron and steel with 25 per cent and other general cargo also with nearly 25 per cent. In sum, four features define the dynamics of the maritime traffic in the Baltic Sea: the increase in oil traffic based on the Russian exports, the upward movement of containers, the growth intra-baltic ro-ro circulation and the concentration of traffic on certain ports, especially St. Petersburg [7]. 3. Port differentiation and regionalization The Baltic regionalisation exists via the concentration of maritime connections on the ports of Hamburg and Bremerhaven which manifest the integration of the Baltic Sea in the global maritime networks. The maritime traffic is relatively diffused on the whole of the Baltic Sea, even if there is a distinction of maritime and port activities within the Baltic Sea, mostly between the south and the north shores A hierarchized containerization network Containerized cargo is transported via shipping lines, operated on a regular basis. It is characteristic of the insertion of Baltic ports in the regular maritime lines, therefore of their levels of integration in the world trade. The amount of containers shipped in the Baltic Sea is determined by the proximity of consumer markets with Russia being the key destination point of containerized cargo. This explains the confident leading position taken by the port of St. Petersburg in that segment. Only a few ports handle large quantities of containers. The largest regional container port, Saint-Petersburg, stands only 10th in Europe, the second largest (Gothenburg) 20th. Due to geography, Baltic ports cannot reach the volumes of large Western Europe ports, which act as transshipment hubs. In 2012, the number of containers handled among Baltic Sea ports amounted to 9.4 million TEUs, which equals an annual growth of 7%. The composition of the 20 largest container ports remained the same as in 2011 (Figure 4). St. Petersburg is clearly the undisputable leader in this segment with approximately 2.5 million TEUs handled (23 million tons), while Gdansk recorded considerable and continued growth in container numbers handled. Empty outbound containers is a shared singularity in the region 1 In this form of service a maritime company rents a ship for a specific purpose, commonly between a specific port of origin and destination. This type of shipping service is notably used in the case of bulk cargo. 8

9 leading to a trend of general and bulk cargo being often sent in containers to reduce costs. Figure 4: Baltic Sea containerized traffic in 2011 The analysis of the containerized traffic in the ports of the Baltic Sea in 2011 distinguishes three types of ports in the region [8] : - Traditional regional importance ports as Gothenburg and Trelleborg whose location and the early opening of containerized goods explain the contemporary importance. For instance, the port of Gothenburg benefits from multiple advantages: location before the Danish straits, and privileged situation ; - Regional or national ports, mainly located on the western shore of the Baltic Sea. The often modest traffic of these ports must not minimalize their role in the regional economies, especially for the "distant" regions of the Gulf of Bothnia; 9

10 - Ports of "Russia" are themselves made up of Russian, Baltic and Finnish (Hamina/Kotka) ports. This port s range is also the most dynamic one in the BSR. Year 2013 saw the continuing growth of containerized cargo flows in the region but important terminals were mainly located in the countries with larger consumer markets, and shipping lines tend to overtook smaller ports in their routes Toward a sub-regionalization of Baltic Sea Several different maritime facades The differentiation is mainly the result of the diversity of the ports hinterland, their dimensions, their economic characteristics or the type of goods concerned. In the Gulf of Bothnia, the traffic is less important than in the rest of the Baltic Sea. Two main factors explain this situation: the weakness of the regional market and the constraints to navigation, mainly in winter due to the freeze-up [2]. However, the maritime transport remains paramount and often constitutes the main or even the sole support of international flows of goods and passengers. The Scandinavian ports constitute a first group because they are in general at the end of regular maritime line and are rarely transit ports. The shipping lines are essential for the supply of the countries and for the export of national productions, including the wood. 95% of containers received in the port of Copenhagen are for example used in the Greater Copenhagen region. Finally, the southern ports are of 2 types: - The German ports, near the straits, are ports dominated by ro-ro north/south flows. This is also the case of a large number of Danish ports. - The Polish ports are medium size ports whose hinterland is essentially national. Gdańsk and Gdynia have long constituted the exit door of industrial products routed through the axis Warsaw/Gdańsk and especially Lodz/Gdańsk. Today these axes are used in the context of institutionalized corridors and corridors of project. On the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, ports specificities are clear and a particular network performs (Figure 5). It also appears in the Danish Straits with a dense network of intra-baltic connections between Danish and Swedish ports. Figure 5: Baltic Sea containerization network 10

11 Integrated cross-border areas Intra-baltic shipping is also very important in the region, mainly using ro-ro vessels and ferries. Intra-baltic services mark clearly the Baltic paradox: when the Baltic economy becomes increasingly globalized, its transportation is regionalizing. This phenomenon is reinforced by the policies of maritime companies. For instance, second grand Nordic operator, the Danish company DFDS has successively acquired Lisco (Lithuania) in 2001 and Latline (Latvia) in So, a number of ports in the Baltic Sea specialize in Ro-Ro cargo segment (Lubeck, Rostock, Trelleborg) and the effects of local level integration are particularly important within the Baltic area. A typology on the ro-ro connections in 2011 confirmed the low number of dependent ports on the Baltic scale. Most are located on the German coastline (Lübeck, Travemünde), as well as on the eastern facade (Ventspils, Riga, Liepāja, Klaipėda). Within the Danish straits or in the Gulf of Finland, some other ports are more connected to the European scale: Hamina/Kotka, Rauma, Sundsvall or Gothenburg for instance. Most of the ro-ro connections are therefore engaged at the local level, particularly around three major areas: the Oresund (Figure 6), the region of the Gulf of Finland and the central Baltic. The intensity of the ro-pax connections in these regions is based on a strong functional integration. Figure 6: Ro-pax lines in the Øresund 11

12 3.3. The eastern Baltic port range After the collapse of the USSR, half of the former Soviet port capacity of the Baltic Sea was located outside Russia. In the mid-1990s, Russia had to find a safe and cheap way for commercial relations [7]. First solution was to use the soviet ports located in the Baltic States and some Finnish ports. In a new political and competitive environment, Russia is now increasing port capacities in the Baltic Sea [9]. The following factors in the eastern Baltic need to be taken into consideration: the geographic asymmetry of the cargo flow (approximately 90% of the cargos flow in the direction East to West); the relative homogeneity of production of the types of cargos (two thirds of all the cargos handled are coal and oil products, which have a very limited potential of additional value); homogeneity of the countries of origin. Russia is sharply developing the ports of its region, in order to decrease the cargo flow in other transit corridors. Furthermore, in 2012, several new ro-ro and container lines have been opened in the Baltic Sea [5]. In reality, there is a Baltic ports range with its own characteristics and a specific organization, in which the ports have linked similarities with the combination of competition, complementarities and cooperation. From an endogenous way, the Baltic range represents itself by common characteristics and original interdependence. From an external point of view, it is also characterized by its specific links with the main maritime ways. Today, this ports range still keeps particularities of the Soviet system: - The purpose of the port system remains mostly similar: exports of raw materials from Russia and the CIS countries and import of manufactured goods; 12

13 - The substantial part of the cargos handled in the eastern Baltic ports is supposed to be shipped further on to Russia or other CIS countries (approximately 80% of all the containers handled in the ports of Latvia match this description). Increase in maritime traffic (Figure 2) has mainly benefited the ports of the Gulf of Finland where are localized the two most dynamic ports in the region: St. Petersburg and Primorsk, but also the new opened port of Ust-Luga. The investment-driven rapid development of the port of UstLuga has recently moved it to the second place by cargo turnover among the ports of the region, outperforming St. Petersburg by the total cargo turnover in Unlike the port of St. Petersburg, which continues to be one of the traditional leaders in the region and is an undisputable leader as a hub for containerized cargo, the current key player Primorsk experienced an outstanding growth in years The port specializes purely in oil cargo handling, which is supplied via the Baltic Pipeline System (BPS). Except the Russian ports, the ports of Riga and Klaipeda are the most dynamic in the region, using the Russian proximity but also different hinterland possibilities toward Belarus, Ukraine or Central Asia. The role of ports in the Baltic Sea Region is vital for the Russian Federation and other CIS countries, including the delivery of containers to the main consumption areas (Moscow region) and a few further destinations. For the reasons, Tallinn, Riga, Klaipeda and the Russian ports are emerging as the entry doors of the CIS. To encourage the container traffic, ports and railway companies are organizing block trains between the Baltic States and the CIS but also with Afghanistan and China. 4. Multimodal transport development on the Baltic shores Multi-modalism is closely aligned to containerization. It is the development of the transit system beyond the sea leg on a port-to-port basis to overland infrastructure [10]. On all shores of the Baltic Sea, multi-modalism is also developing in link with container transportation, and in link with port and maritime activities Dry ports improvement in the BSR When containerisation is bumming, ports often meet with shortage of capacities for container storage areas. The concept of the dry port is based on a seaport directly connected by rail with inland intermodal terminals, where shippers can leave and/or collect their goods in intermodal loading units as if directly at the seaport. The seaport and the inland terminals are connected with high capacity traffic modes, such as rail, rather than only with road. Thus, a dry port is a port situated in the hinterland servicing an industrial/commercial region connected with one or several ports by rail and/or road transport and is offering specialised services between the dry port and the transmarine destinations. In addition to the transhipment that a conventional inland intermodal terminal provides, services such as storage, consolidation, depot, maintenance of containers, and customs clearance are usually available at dry ports [11]. Nowadays, with to the development of container traffic, there is growing number of dry ports in the BSR in order to distribute containers into hinterland in a structured and optimal way, as in Sweden or in Poland. 13

14 The concept has been implemented by the port of Gothenburg from which containers are transferred to the other parts of Sweden. The Port of Gothenburg is no railway operator but a very important driver for developing the Swedish intermodal system in general and rail based hinterland services in particular. The container shuttles connected to the port is the success story of Swedish rail-based intermodality. The system has been developed over a number of years, and currently 26 full train shuttles are operated by seven different railway operators. Most of the shuttles offer a daily frequency [12]. Poznan dry port is an interesting example too. It is a distant dry port that supports the North range European ports in the supply of containers coming from the other continents and directed to Poland and neighbouring countries. There is close cooperation of the local rail container terminals with the sea ports of Hamburg, Bremerhaven, Rotterdam or Antwerp in relieving their traffic congestion resulting from the excess of transhipment operations to be carried on a limited area in a very short time. Poznan is used as a dry port receiving large number of containers in order to distribute them throughout the country. It may be estimated that ca TEU are yearly transported on rails coming through Poznan container terminals. The main receiving regions in Poland are south of Poland and central part of Poland. In the same way, Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC), which owns the majority of stevedoring company Klaipedos Smelte shares, intends to transport more cargo by railway. MSC Vilnius has signed a letter of intent with Lithuanian Railways to establish a large container terminal at Vilnius Intermodal Terminal (VIT). VIT is being built near Vaidotai railway station through which container trains travel constantly Ports and railways in the eastern Baltic Baltic States are mainly transit territories for goods coming from or going to post-soviet states. So, the transport system is based on the complementarities of ports and railways Transport sector and transit The independence of the Baltic in early 1990 and EU enlargement of 1 May 2004, displaced the European Union border to the east, introducing a discontinuity in the area of the eastern Baltic. But it doesn t juxtapose any difference in mesh or network, because they are largely inherited from the Soviet period. At late twentieth century, when the political discontinuities have moved, transportation networks have persisted. Transport contributes to keep territories strongly reached. Transport and logistics sector has a significant role in the economy of the Baltic States. Transportation and storage sector has traditionally been one of the key industries in the Baltic States, making a significant contribution to the wealth of the countries. Transportation and storage sector in Lithuania grew faster than the country's overall economy in The sector generated over 13% of the total GDP in Lithuania in 2012, which is the highest ratio across the Baltic States. In Latvia the figure reached 12%, while over 80% of international railway cargo flows in the country went through ports in Transit is of key importance to the sector. In the port of Tallinn, 76% of freight handled in 2012 was transit. The port of Riga estimates transit to account for approximately 70%-77% of all freight handled. In Lithuania, the port of Klaipeda is less dependent on 14

15 transit traffic than other ports of the Baltic States In 2012, 42% of traffic was transit, out of which 78% came from Belarus A Soviet inheritance: railway transportation The transit traffic is mainly supported by railway transportation. Amounts transported by rail (measured in million tonne-kilometres) are significantly higher than in the other countries. The following table clearly shows the regional specificity in terms of freight transport (Table 2): it is dominated by rail, especially for international circulation. Even if rail share in freight transport is decreasing, it is still higher than in the other EU countries. Road transport is yet minor and volatile. As statistics about road transport are not available, only rail transport is here analysed. Table 2: Part of rail in fret transportation (%) EU Estonia Latvia Lithuania Source: Eurostat, Main international rail freight flows in the Baltic States concern Russia, as a result of port transit activities. For instance crude oil exported by Tallinn-Muuga is carried by rail from Russia. We can notice a spatial differentiation of intensity and distribution of international rail freight: - In Lithuania, flows exist with most post-soviet states; In Latvia, the distribution of flows is much more concentrated, with the absence of the Caucasus countries. In Latvia approximately 97 % of all transported cargo carried by railway is international cargo transit; - Estonia seems to be in an intermediate position. There is also a phenomenon of neighbourhood, for example between Lithuania and Belarus (Klaipeda exports Belarus fertilizers to EU and USA).In addition, traditional goods (metals, minerals, oil...), a new kind of traffic considerably increases: container flows Block-trains rapid development Ports, railway companies and new operators (shipping and stevedoring international companies) are setting up block-trains between the Baltic States and FSU or China. A block train, is a train in which all the wagons making it up are shipped from the same origin to the same destination, without being split up or stored en route. Block-trains enable door-to-door delivery, safety and easy border crossing as well as customs procedures (CIS/EU border in 30 min). 15

16 The most successful pattern is the shuttle train Viking, launched in 2003, between Klaipeda (Lithuania), Odessa and Illichivsk (Figure 7), which carries about 40,000 TEUs per year. Railways and shipping companies, ports of Lithuania and Ukraine, cooperate to simplify customs procedures, so trains can travel in 52 hours the 1,734 kilometers that separate the two ports. Today, Georgia intends to join the Viking intermodal project. In addition, negotiations are underway with Moldova, Turkey, Syria, Azerbaijan, Finland, Sweden and Norway. The second good example is the Baltica transit, a twice weekly block-train service between Riga and Almaty (Kazakhstan). Transit time is 8-10 days. In Latvia, the train is operated by LDZ Cargo in cooperation with FESCO (Far Eastern Shipping Co.) for the Russian part. Figure 7: Block-trains between Baltic States and CIS countries Indeed, the prospect of a rapid development of transport potential sharpens ambitions of regional actors. Nowadays, many projects appear. AS Baltic Rail develops scheduled container trains from Šeštokai to St. Petersburg, Moscow and Central Asia. The choice of Šeštokai railway station is not trivial because it is the oriental terminus of European gauge railway lines. The idea is to make this technical constraint an asset for the development of network interoperability, particularly with the forthcoming opening of the Rail Baltica. Reloading is combined with logistics much more profitable functions, especially because it will more and more be manufacturing products with high added value to distribute over large areas [13]. The Rail Baltica project illustrates the importance of North-South corridor with further growing with economic developments in Black Sea and Mediterranean Sea countries. North-South transport corridor gives new links for East-West trade and supports economic development. So, eastern Baltic has a favourable logistical position with multiple railway connections to CIS and Asian countries. Regular container trains run to/from Russia, Belarus, 16

17 Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan and China. Furthermore, special container trains run several times per week, securing direct access to the continent The Baltic Sea and the Eurasian Landbridge Sea transport is the main way of goods transportation between Europe and Asia. It is mainly using the royal road, passing through the Suez Canal. Many alternatives are studied. Among them, a rail landbridge through Russia appears like the more realistic Landbridge definition In the strictest sense the term applies to traffic that is transiting across a continent en route to overseas destinations [14]. So, The Silk Road can be considered as one of the first major landbridge. The Eurasian Landbridge can be defined as a mini or a micro Landbridge because it uses a landmass as a link in a transport chain involving a foreign origin and an inland destination (sometimes at the end of the landmass) [15]. In fact, the Trans-Siberian was the first mini-bridge to be in operation in 1967, linking harbours of the pacific coast to ports of Baltic and Atlantic coasts of Europe. Still, an -Eurasian Landbridge that covers Siberia and ends at the pacific coast of Russia or China is receiving serious considerations. Freight shipments by rail between Germany and China would fall into this category. The group of shipments that use the overland corridor for a portion of its length, such as the traffic between Baltic Sea and Central Asia, is more functioning like a micro-bridge The East-West Freight Corridor The beginning of the 21st century has brought renewed interests for the corridor, especially with the booming of Asian trade and the increasing pressure to ship containerized freight in a time sensitive manner over long distances. Despite of some challenges, the prospects of the Eurasian Landbridge remain positive. For China, an opportunity to develop the interior provinces and avoid congestion at the coastal ports could also be partially fulfilled by the Eurasian Landbridge. In January 2008 a long distance service called the Beijing-Hamburg Container Express was inaugurated. The km service takes 15 days to link the Chinese capital to the German port, going through Mongolia, the Russian Federation, Belarus and Poland. The maritime journey covering the same markets would take about 30 days. The freight corridor in its contemporary form could save about 15 days on the journey between China and Europe. A Eurasian landbridge might mainly use the Russian railways. One of the main Russian development projects is to utilize the country s geographical position in order to create new international corridors and integrate Russian railway sector into Eurasian transport network [16]. In fact, there are several corridor possibilities which with their numerous branches, forms an unified network, providing the foundation for the development of a gigantic economic area. The more important are the following ones: The Trans-Siberian Railway is the principal railway link between European Russia and its industrial regions to the east. 17

18 The Northern Trans-Asian corridor is the second most developed. It runs from Lianyungang through China, Kazakhstan and Russia to Western Europe. The Central Trans-Asian corridor runs from the Sino-Kazakh border to Almaty to Volgograd in Russia and on to Ukraine. This corridor is relatively underdeveloped now. Nowadays, direct overland shipments remain insignificant. Even if a rail landbridge could capture only a small share of the market, that would represent an important economic opportunity for the railways involved. In consequences, the northern corridors, going to the Baltic Sea, have received more attention despite the presumed time/ distance advantages. A part of the necessary infrastructure exists to ensure the setting of the corridor, particularly along the Trans-Siberian which is double tracked and electrified but some obstacles still exist. They can be grouped into three categories: - Technical: an extensive as the rail network appears on the map but there are a number of missing links or bottlenecks. The main one is the gauges difference, standard (1.435 m) and broad (1.520 m), which requires reloading or an adaptation of the equipment to gauge change. In any cases, this imposes additional delays. - Commercial: as much as time and distance advantages of the landbridge are evident, a critical factor is cost. Maritime transport is still most cost efficient than the intermodal solution. - Operational: there is a large number of operational difficulties. Customs clearance and border controls are seen as a potential bottleneck. There are many countries involved in rail land segment that are politically, economically and culturally very different. The multitude of actors requires a level of multinational cooperation [17]. There has also to be a single bill of lading issued by the freight forwarder that covers the entire intermodal journey. Developing and improving intermodal links between the coastal regions and inland markets in both Europe and Asia is the first step. Thus ports in Europe extend their intermodal connections eastward, while Asian ports establish efficient intermodal links in adjacent markets Eastern Baltic opportunities in the Eurasian Landbridge development In this context, the Baltic Sea is positioning itself as a potential privileged space for the development of intermodality: - Western "natural" terminus of the rail network inherited from the Soviet Union, they are now integrated into the European transport system; - Recent and contemporary developments of the Trans-European Networks induce the emergence of new transport opportunities like the emergence of multimodal logistics platforms. - Baltic ports are connected by an important feeder network to the Northern Range and the usage of a land segment can insure the continuity of a maritime segment. Moreover, combining sea and rail transport offers a response to land-locked Central Asia, using block-trains between the Baltic ports and this region. The northern route 18

19 through the Baltic Sea has the constraint of transfer by ferry, but however avoids all transit through intermediate countries like Ukraine or Poland. This option provides opportunities to the Baltic States ports, primarily Klaipeda which ensures the shortest way. The eastern Baltic Sea countries due to the external circumstances have a unique opportunity to complete their mission of being an important linking element between two major economical unions in the frameworks of the Trans-continental international logistic chain [18]. 5. Conclusion Maritime transport in the Baltic Sea constitutes an important part of trade and services in the region. Baltic shipping is constantly growing and some of the busiest shipping routes in the world go through the Baltic Sea. Cumulative cargo turnover has kept an increasing level even in the environment of global economic recession and it is dominated by bulks, mainly oil products. In fact, the cargo turnover of many Baltic ports is heavily dependent on Russian foreign trade transhipments through these ports (especially the Baltic States ports). The ports strategy and infrastructure are being developed with the hope of attracting Russian transit. In this context, Baltic Sea ports are now hierarchized. As it was shown, the maritime sub-regionalization is important and produces several ports facades with a very integrated one, the eastern Baltic range. Multimodality is much more linked to containerized traffic which is quite new in the region and quickly growing. Baltic ports are welcoming more direct calls of line vessels. Some ports are not that well-connected to the global long distance shipping network and show limited opportunities to improve their connectivity. Some other ports, mainly on the eastern shore, are also developing their continental network with new direct intermodal rail service, mainly on the eastern shore. If the Eurasian landbridge is successful, it could have a major impact on international trade between two of the main trading blocs of the world, and provide a significant boost to the economies of the countries and regions through which it passes. It will not only help reduce transit time and transportation costs but also mark the beginning of an era of region-wide cooperation and development. The multimodal transport via sea links has its own specificity in the Baltic Sea. Since seaports are involved in providing logistic services to transhipment cargo, hinterland characteristics remain fundamentally important in terms of logistics attractiveness. Major trade roots in Baltic Sea area are located in East-West direction. However political, technological and economic changes have created demand and opportunities for the development of North-South ties. Short-sea shipping, based on the dense ro-ro network and promoted in EU with the motorways of the sea, should be another approach of multimodality solution in the region. Such a logistic chain based on maritime transport could be an alternative for the road transport. At least, one other challenge remains to increase the share of multimodal transport solutions on short distances. 19

20 This study is a first result of the construction of an important database on the Baltic Sea Ports which is associated with a cartographic work. Data gathered in this study will be used as background information in later stages of research on maritime and port activities in the BSR. It will be interesting to extend the research, essentially using the statistical database, to the supply of maritime transport services in the region because it reveals the organization of contemporary networks, but also to generate a diachronic analysis of the Baltic maritime transport. Another further research idea concerns the multimodal development in the region: the comparison between the case of eastern Baltic shore and corridors that develop between Poland and Central Europe could be very relevant. References [13] Beyer A. (2008). Le contact des réseaux ferrés à écartement russe et européen. Héritage embarrassant ou futur trait d union continental. STRATES N 15. pp [10] Branch, A. (2007) Elements of shipping. Eighth edition. Oxon: Routledge. [4] Breitsmann KH., Möller M., Wenske C. (2012). Report on Structure and Amount of Baltic Maritime Transport. Rostock: Clean Shipping Currents. [6] Debrie J., Eliot E., Soppe M. (2005). Un modèle transcalaire des nodalités et polarités portuaires : exemple d application au port de Hambourg. Mappemonde. No [8] Escach N. and Serry A. (2013). Les ports de la Mer Baltique entre mondialisation des échanges et régionalisation réticulaire. Géoconfluence. [1] Hakkinen A., Posti J. (2012). Survey of transportation of liquid bulk chemical in the Baltic. Turku: Centre for Maritime Studies. [11] Jaržemskis A., Vasiliauskas AV. (2007). Research on dry port concept as intermodal node. TRANSPORT. Vol 22, No 3. pp [18] Kabashkin I. (2012). Freight transport logistics in the Baltic Sea region. Transport and Telecommunication. Volume 13. No 1. pp [16] Kämärä A. (2010). Russian_port_and_railway_sectors development University if Turku. Center for Maritime Studies. [2] Lépy E. (2012). Baltic Sea ice and environmental and societal implications from the comparative analysis of the Bay of Bothnia and the Gulf of Riga. Fennia 190: 2, pp [17] Pittman R. (2013). The freight railways of the former Soviet Union, twenty years on: Reforms lose steam. Research in Transportation Business & Management. Volume 6. pp [5] Rijkure A. (2013). The role of the Latvian ports within the Baltic Sea Region. European Integration Studies. No. 7. pp [15] Rodrigue JP., Comtois C., Slack B. (2013) The Geography of Transport Systems, 3rd Edition. Routledge. 20

21 [12] Roso V., Woxenius J., Olanderson G. (2006). Organisation of Swedish dry port. Goteborg: Chalmers University of Technology. [14] Slack B. (2000), Landbridges: opportunities, constraints and challenges. EAROPH World Congress. Asan City. Korea. [7] Serry A.(2011). Dynamiques du transport maritime en Baltique orientale. Territoire en mouvement. N 10. pp [3] Serry A. (2012), Circulation at Russian-Baltic States Boundary: a Cut and a Seam. Regional Formation and Development Studies. No. 1 (6). pp [9] Thorez P. (2011). Les enjeux portuaires de la Russie en mer Baltique. Territoire en mouvement. N 10. pp