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When the partners of the European Union Dryport project met during the Multimodal conference in Birmingham in April, a key message to come out at their workshop was that dryports as part of innovative supply chains can – and must – tick the three ‘E’ boxes, meeting the requirements of Environment, Economy and Efficiency. If one of those is missing, then so, probably, is the interest in using such a facility.

Further to that, anyone seeking to set up or expand a dryport needs to get that ‘three Es’ message across to local authorities, said workshop chairman John Hinton. “Because when it comes to the crunch, strategic planning is done by local councils. They control and give permission – so it is important that they are on board as early as possible.”

Indeed, dryports may have their ‘green’ virtues on a global scale, but local opposition can be the biggest hurdle to getting them developed.

Richard Clarke, global director ports and marine at consultants AECOM, gives the example of the former US air base at Alconbury in the UK: with one of the biggest runways in Europe, the East Coast Main Line (rail) running right past it, and located where the A14 and A1 roads join, it was seen as an ideal site to develop a air, rail and road freight interchange. Local opposition was enormous and although there is still talk of a road/rail interchange without the air freight bit, the plan still has a long way to go.

However, he says that there is increasing interest in developing and using dryports – thanks to ‘green’ pressures and the threat of mileage-based road taxes, to name two factors. And even road-linked hubs can serve their purpose, where rail paths are hard to come by. Dryports can ease congestion at seaports by fast-tracking goods through; customs clearance, administration, added value and distribution can all take place at a dryport.

AECOM has been commissioned by the Haven Gateway, one of the Dryport project partners, to create a carbon calculator which will help shippers identify and choose low-carbon transportation and supply chains, including a possible dryport option.

“Generally, people are more open to ideas right now and there is the ‘green’ drive,” says Mr Clarke. “It is time to shake the whole thing out, particularly in the UK; the amount of trucks is just absurd, and there has to be a better way. And if inland ports can cut down truck miles, it is going to happen.”

‘Dryport – a modal shift in practice’ – is a three-year public/private sector initiative with partners from Sweden, Belgium, the Netherlands and the UK, examining the way in which ‘hinterland intermodal freight transport hubs’ can best operate to cope with current and future traffic flows and the challenges of port congestion.

Within the project there has been quite some debate about exactly what constitutes a dryport and each of the partners is developing their own studies and projects. The northern Netherlands Port of Harlingen is looking to develop a ‘wet dry port’, and is championing a plan to introduce a twice-weekly barge service around the Ijsselmeer, to pick up and drop off containers that would otherwise be clogging up the roads between the region around Harlingen and the ports of Rotterdam and Amsterdam.

The Swedish partners, including the Port of Gothenburg, already have a dryport in place – the Logistic Center Skaraborg at Falköping, a small intermodal terminal that is earmarked for a huge expansion.

Zeebrugge is developing a multimodal 120-hectare maritime logistics zone next to the port, and the Haven Gateway, a joint partner with Babergh District Council (South Suffolk), is looking at potential dryport sites.

However, Murray Gibson, head of sales and marketing at Hutchison Ports (UK), which owns the Port of Felixstowe – itself a member of the Haven Gateway – says: “In the absence of an extensive network of inland waterways, for our purposes, dryports and inland rail terminals are one and the same. Our rail services continue to expand – we are now offering 28 scheduled freight train arrivals and departures every day.”

The Scottish partners in the project, Transport Research Institute (TRI) at Edinburgh Napier University and SEStran (South East of Scotland Transport Partnership), are working together to establish the need for a Scottish dryport and assess possible sites.

“The primary motive of shippers is to reduce cost, whereas governments want to encourage modal shift, so projects like Dryport are needed to bridge the gap, bringing together shippers, transport operators, infrastructure providers and funding sources to support and manage project development,” says Jason Monios, research assistant at TRI. “There is a bit of a chicken and egg problem, because shippers are reluctant to reorder their transport chains unless they have a secure and cost-effective option already in place, but operators will not provide this option unless they have shippers ready to use it.

“So the Dryport project can help to resolve this issue through feasibility studies and knowledge of other experiences to bring a new service or facility to fruition by reducing the risk that either the shipper or the operator has to take in the first instance.”

As part of the partners’ research, Dr Monios was recently in Spain to visit dryports at Coslada (Madrid), Azuqueca (about an hour outside Madrid) and Zaragoza (between Madrid and Barcelona), to learn about their experiences of public/private cooperation and how they brought the projects together and attracted shippers to use them.

“The Spanish situation is somewhat different to the Scottish experience because of the country’s geography,” he says. “Most of the markets for the ports are in their (relatively) immediate hinterland, except for the case of Madrid which is far inland.”

Hence Coslada is a multi-user site in which the country’s four major ports have a share while Azuqueca and Zaragoza mostly serve the industrial areas in Guadalajara and Zaragoza, he says.

“I think one important lesson to learn is that the site needs to have a specific market that can be served, rather than being too speculative,” says Dr Monios. “It is very important to have the demand in place and the Azuqueca site helped to achieve that by first developing huge logistics sites all around the area, so that the dryport is built to serve an emerging logistics chain.

“If modal shift is to be achieved in the UK, it is important for large shippers to move their warehouses, etc., to rail-connected sites and remodel their supply chain if needed. We are starting to see this with large shippers such as supermarkets. Dryports only make sense if you can consolidate traffic on high-capacity links, so if that is not the case already, it needs to be addressed first, or as part of the development process.”

A freight model study by the Scottish partners has come up with five potential sites for a dryport, says Ian Mathie, programme manager at SEStran – these are at Grangemouth, Rosyth and Methil, all ports owned by Forth Ports; at Coatbridge, an existing Freightliner rail terminal; and at Lockerbie, in the Borders.

The Scottish partners will be hosting Dryport’s annual meeting and conference in October, and will be inviting delegates from Spain to speak at this event.

“They have had similar issues to other countries, in that dryport development is a complex process involving numerous meetings and agreements in order to get the infrastructure built and services running,” says Dr Monios. “They are gradually seeing the positive results of the EU’s directive to liberalise rail markets so that competition for services is lowering the cost of using rail, but more infrastructure changes are needed to reduce shunting, etc. in some instances.”