An intermodal project with added roar

The main objective of TIGER is to ensure a smooth hinterland traffic flow to and from European ports, despite rising freight volumes. In Germany, two iPort demonstrators have been developed, at Nienburg and Bremen, to create smoother rail links to and from the ports of Hamburg and Bremen.

The concept is that wagon groups are exchanged at these hubs, so that trains are assembled and then despatched for only one terminal – seaport or hinterland. Splitting and sorting wagon groups by shunting inside the seaport area was leading to lost time, increased operational costs and more intense use of much-needed infrastructure, as well as impacting on the reliability of the whole supply chain.

The demonstrator projects, using existing facilities, led to a reduction of time in congested port areas, reduction of shunting and train composition efforts, better punctuality of seaport terminal slots, and a contribution to environmental goals, says Stefan Breitenbach, project manager at HHM. “The results from the demonstrators were more than positive, so all the stakeholders plan to carry on these developed solutions in regular operations,” he says. “TIGER and TIGER DEMO made a significant contribution to a stepwise optimisation of seaport hinterland traffic.”

Both projects were initiated by HaCon Ingenieurgesellschaft and NewOpera Aisbl, which asked HMM to join the partnership. “The project idea presented to us convinced us, particularly because an effective and efficient connection to the hinterland is a competitive factor and therefore an important topic for the Port of Hamburg,” said Mr Breitenbach. “Congestion within and outside the port can obstructs the freight/container flows, so innovative solutions, especially by rail, are very interesting developments.”

TIGER DEMO is a good example of how ports can get involved in creating better supply chains and involved good cooperation between the involved partners, he adds. “The project directly invented solutions to a challenge more or less all ports are faced with – the lack of sufficient capacity on ports’ hinterland connections.”