UIRR and IBS Announce Cooperation Talks 21/05/13

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The Interessengemeinschaft der Bahnspediteure (IBS; Community of Interest of Railway Forwarding Agents) and UIRR have announced their mutual intention to jointly explore the ways of promoting the advantages of Road-Rail Combined Transport, as well as rail freight in general on a European level. Details of this collaboration will be worked out in the coming months.

The General Assembly of UIRR, held on 15-16 May in Paris, decided on this collaboration besides closing the 2012 business year. European Road-Rail Combined Transport experienced a period of contraction during the past year resulting in a performance of 5% fewer tonne-kilometres and 11% less in consignments when comparing to 2011. This outcome may be attributed to

  • the crisis-related drop in European economic activities and the resulting weak freight transport demand, and
  • the loss of significant train path capacities on strategic transalpine routes due to multiple-week-long line closures attributable to reconstruction works: Brenner 3 months of which 6 weeks complete blocking, Simplon, as well as a 6-week landslide-related stoppage on the Gotthard line.

Long-haul Unaccompanied Combined Transport (UCT) – on relations longer than 300km – held up relatively well in 2012, while short-haul UCT and Accompanied Combined Transport (RoMo) suffered considerably, signified by the 4% tkm loss of UCT compared to the 19% drop in RoMo’s tkm performance. The transport of semi-trailers in pocket-wagons reached a historic peak in history. CT also managed to retain its market share in the important segment of dangerous goods shipments.

Combined Transport Operators implemented several adjustments, which included changes in ownership as well as mergers in 2012:

  • Following the absorption of Intercontainer Austria (ICA) by its parent company, Rail Cargo Austria (RCA), which is not a member of UIRR, Ökombi, Europe’s largest RoMo operator, was also merged into RCA effective 1 January 2013.
  • Hungarokombi, the RoMo operator in Hungary, has terminated its activities
  • Novatrans of France as well as Crokombi of Croatia both have been sold to new owners.
  • Cemat of Italy has been merged with Italcontainer, its domestically focused sister-company, which mainly organised maritime hinterland traffic.

UIRR Members have been actively conducting enhancements to their operations and their service offering to maintain their competitiveness in these challenging times.

New members were elected to UIRR’s Board of Directors: Alexandre Gallo (Novatrans) and René Dancet (RAlpin) to join Chairman Robert Breuhahn, Vice-Chairman Peter Howald, Marco Gosso and Rok Svetek. The UIRR Report 2012-13 published on the same day has been integrated with the customary statistics booklet.

Related documents
Press release EN
Annual report 2012-13 EN
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