A. Importance of the hinterland
Importance of the service road of the back-country revêt
indeed a cardinal importance for the great European harbor places.
The concept of hinterland, formerly strictly regional, results
from now on new economic geography from Europe with the opening of the Eastern
European countries, the increase in European continental dimension. The large
ports, which must already face the reduction of the number of the stopovers of
the ships, must now consider a deep hinterland of 1500 to 2000 km, unless
losing their statute.
The attention paid to the nautical and harbor equipment has today
equal only that granted to the surface transports. North in the south of
Europe, the report is the same one : the battle of the container is gained
with ground.
With the depreciation of the ocean freights, the price of the
terrestrial routing gains in importance in the chain of transport at the point
to become sometimes dominating.
At the beginning of New York for example, the routing of a
container towards Le Havre or Hamburg costs the same thing appreciably. The
appreciation is done on the surface transport. On a course Chicago/Munich, the
surface transport accounts for 45% of the total cost. They will be thus the
speed of the terrestrial course and its cost of routing which will guide the
choice of the port by the ship-owner.
Taking into account the times of potting and discharge with
ground, routing times terrestrial and prolonged parkings related to the
breaking bulks, a container passes 2/3 of its duration of its life to ground
and 1/3 at sea, and the costs. The large armaments then them were also
introduced into the organization of terrestrial displacements of containers. In
1990, the armaments realized more than a third of their sales turnover out of
the maritime transport (31% for the CMB, 44% for the CGM and 58% for
Nedlloyd).
The ship-owners integrate the terrestrial routing of the
containers into their total service while the chargers keep the control of
terrestrial flows. It is the carrier haulage. This one makes it
possible to release from new sources of profit because it makes it possible the
maritime company (ship-owner) to make its margin on the surface transport. The
scales of freight being fixed within the framework of the conferences, the
carrier haulage allowed the company to offer prices from beginning to end
lower than those of competition, without transgressing the scale of the
conference. With this intention, of new systems of quotation from beginning to
end (door to door) were founded intended to opacify with respect to the
customers the components of the invoiced total price and particularly the
considerable repercussion on the one hand of the expenses of harbor passage
(CSC Container Service Loads and THC Terminal Handling Charges) which are
invoicees by the owner of the terminal to the maritime company which deals with
some 20% under the ship and redébite the 80% remainder with the goods,
i.e. to the charger.
The surface transports thus dictate the strategies and the
choices of the large armaments. The continental dependence increases compared
to the oceanic dependence.
Analyzing the growing importance of the terrestrial service road
of the hinterlands of the ports, Andre Graillot, General manager of the Port
authority of Le Havre, sees three reasons for which the choice of the port will
be subjected more and more to the cost of the management of terrestrial flows
of containers : first of all, the increase on behalf of the costs the pre
one and post-routing in the total cost of transport which results from the
profits of productivity of the large ships ; secondly, the competition
increased on the surface transports which results from their
liberalization ; and finally, constraints of the dedicated fleets of
containers which oblige to turn over, very often with vacuum, the container
with the seaport. It is of more obvious than a port cannot ensure the reception
or the delivery of massive flows of containers (500 or 1000 per stopover)
without effective terrestrial means of transport.
With the massification of flows waited in each port candidates to
the statute of port major, increase in the traffic on each terrestrial mode,
even if the modal split has to change in favor of the railway mode forces to
develop for the three modes of powerful installations in terms of capacity and
speed. The investments of transport will thus contribute to modify flows of
exchanges and the conditions of development of the areas, even international
competition in favor of a country or an area to the detriment of others.
In France, only North is (Alsace/Lorraine) escapes the French
ports with the profit from Antwerp and Rotterdam. But the opening of the
European market is likely to place the French ports in delicate position
compared to the competition of the seaports of North.
The increase in productivity of the surface transports extends
the hinterlands. The Le Havre-native back-country hardly exceeding the 500 km,
the port of Le Havre will have to thus rake broad. The logic of massification
forces to him to reinforce its influence on the back-country beyond the Paris
area towards the east, the south is, Germany, Switzerland, Italy and to in
addition extend its maritime radiation by connections of coastal traffic on
other ports in France and Europe.
To face this competition and to propose with the international
customers an alternative in Antwerp and Rotterdam, Le Havre thus needs
important terrestrial service roads. Because with the central position which is
his, Le Havre must pay the greatest attention to the installation of
competitive subsidiary companies for the pre one and post-routing of the goods.
They are a condition of the massification and would allow him to benefit from a
privileged maritime situation : 1st port touched with the importation in
Europe, last station of provisioning to export. For the charger or the receiver
of the back-country, this situation is equivalent to « transit
time » the best.
With a rise of 11,2% of the traffic containers in 1998, the port
of Le Havre enjoys a found confidence all the same and can foresee the future
under good conditions.
However, the return to the growth of the port of Le Havre and the
French ports in general remains fragile because of the weakness of their
terrestrial service roads compared to those of the ports of North but also on
the level of treated volumes. With 50% of the sea traffic of the European
Union, the ports of Arranges remain the reference. And first of all as regards
railway, road but so river service road, they take very whole Europe for
hinterland. Antwerp and Rotterdam profit for their part from a remarkably
structured river system, facilitating the penetration to the heart of Europe
thanks to the Rhine-Hand-Danube connection. The relative share of the river
navigation in the sea traffic accounts for approximately 50% in the ports of
the Benelux countries against 1 to 2% in Le Havre.
The ports profiting from the presence of an important river
system seek to still improve this service road because the waterway is useful
more and more beyond its traditional routings, with the transport of the
various goods and the containers at an extremely economic cost. Antwerp and
Rotterdam are thus connected, thanks to these river highways, to about thirty
harbor terminals, relay between the factories and the river convoys with large
gauge, shelled along the Rhine.
Served by excellent terrestrial means of transport, the ports of
Arranges also profit from their good geographical positioning compared to the
economic poles of the European continent. Hamburg, for example, compensates for
its physical situation of last port of Arranges as well as the increase of
Elba, by a favorable positioning with respect to the German economic centers
and the organization of the distribution towards the Central European
countries, Scandinavia and the ports of the Baltic. This function of
« hub » is developed by the capacity of the harbor
professions to be projected in the hinterland.
One could in addition doubt a future shining for the wearing of
Antwerp : the length of the estuary of the Scheldt, the passage of the
locks which make lose with a boat of rather strong tonnage 24H compared to
Rotterdam. But, on another side, the increase of the river involves, for the
receiver of the back-country, a profit of transport of surface transport of
more than 100 km.
However, the price of the maritime transport decreased and the
surface transport intervenes more, we saw it, in the total cost of the logistic
chain. Antwerp also draws favors of its positioning near the French market, of
its to large gauge towards the great industrial parks of the Central Europe and
its river quality distribution network of port substitutable, complementary to
Rotterdam.
In term of traffic, the variation is very significant between the
port of the estuary of the Seine and those of Arranges and the difference in
scale is very sensitive : Rotterdam treats 4,5 times more EVP, Hamburg 2,8
and Antwerp 2,5. The unhooking of Le Havre was accentuated during the period
1990/1997. However Le Havre is, after Rotterdam, more stocked in lines. Almost
all the services make stopover there, but the volume treated with each touched
remains limited to the need for the French market is on average 500 limp
instead of 1000 to 2000 in the competitor European ports.
Indeed, the positioning of Le Havre compared to the European
economic poles poses a problem. Le Havre profits from the weight of the Paris
area and the Island of France (10 million inhabitants to 250 km) but
excentré than its competitors compared to the principal centers of
activities and consumption in Europe. The objective consultation of a chart of
flows and a chart of density of population of Europe locate the challenge
well : all will be exploited the quality and the dimension of the system
of distribution on the Central Europe.
If the principal force of Le Havre is its maritime situation (1st
port touched with the importation, the last with export) and nautical (Le Havre
can receive unconstrained all the door containers in service including the
méga carriers with a draft of 14 meters), its principal weakness is
heavy : the quasi total absence of control of essential links in the
distribution of the containers in Europe by the Le Havre-native harbor
professionals and the lack of serious potential.
To be based on a multi-modal system and an emulation between
modes cause a drop in the prices, to control well the costs of pre and
post-routing, such are the essential conditions of success. Because, to widen
its hinterland within the surfaces of indecision of a European space where the
ports of quality and full with appetite do not miss and are often extremely
close from/to each other, it is not only to be well placed, it is initially to
have a complete, effective and inexpensive service road. However, of the
differences appear between the ports which offer more or less tempting
services.
The ports of the Benelux countries arise for example most
competitive on their pre or terrestrial post-routing in Alsace and Lorraine
(natural hinterland of the port native of Le Havre), thanks to the availability
of the water way with large gauge (the Rhine and the Moselle) which makes it
possible to offer river charges freight lower by 30 to 40% at the price of road
transport towards Le Havre.
At the beginning of Strasbourg, the river navigation towards
Rotterdam is the mode of the most competitive routing for the shipper, that is
to say 4.025 F for a container of 40 ' in « round trip » to
compare in 6120 F towards Rotterdam by road and 7300 F towards Le Havre. This
clear difference allows the Rhenish river transport, with pre or road
post-routing, to be competing in a ray of approximately 300 km around the
container terminal of the port authority of Strasbourg and thanks to the
current fleet, very powerful, one needs only 48 H to rejoin Rotterdam starting
from Strasbourg.
In the east thus, the true competitor of pre or road
post-routing is the river transport, via the water way with large gauge towards
the ports of north, which draw the prices of the market downwards, whatever is
the mode.
The influence of the terrestrial means of transport of the
ports of the Benelux countries decreases when one if directs more to the south
towards Dijon where the price of the road transport starting from the Harbor
finds its relevance.
The threats do not miss for the port native of Le Havre. The
projects of the competitor ports which aim at the position of outsider, are
much more advanced than that of Port 2000. But the strongest threat comes from
the locking in fact of the access to the market of the long distance to Europe
by the German railroads by which the strategy of partnership is also
accompanied by an hegemonic marketing strategy from which the wearing of Bremen
and Hamburg will profit de facto.
The ports of Arranges generate thus thanks to their physical
positioning with respect to the continent and with good terrestrial grid
systems the most important volumes of the European ports.
Also, whereas France continues to develop its NORTH-SOUTH
relations, the ports of Arranges privileged the western axes/is while misant
massively on the railway mode serving the principal European economic poles
located in « blue banana » and Eastern Europe which
presents a new economic outlet.
All these maritime and terrestrial assets seem to cancel those of
a port like that of Le Havre, being praised to be the last station before the
transoceanic highway. Misfortune thus with the ports in lack of hinterland.
Le Havre will thus have, in its fight to become a hand European
port, to provide in dialog with the managers and owners of the surface
transports of the considerable efforts in order to compete with the assets of
the competitor ports, to even exceed them.
The increase in productivity of the maritime transport thus
involved the increase in the productivity of the surface transports having for
consequences to extend the hinterlands. It was thus a question in the chain of
transport of taking into account a multi-modal system emphasizing an effective
complementarity between the modes making it possible cause a drop in the
prices, to become more competitive and thus to widen the extent of its
back-country. It was a question for the ports of developing the capacities of
seduction and the potentialities existing in a geographical space where
competition is exacerbated.
B. Irrigation of the traffics between the various
means of transport in the Le Havre-native back-country
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Modal shares in the pre ones and post-routings of the
port of Le Havre in 1997
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ROAD
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866.000 EVP
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73,1%
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82,5%
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IRON
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166.000 EVP
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14%
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16%
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RIVER
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16.000 EVP
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1,4%
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1,5%
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SEA (feedering)
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136.000 EVP
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11,5%
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This on a smaller scale was than Antwerp and Rotterdam, Le Havre
with the chance to be able to play the chart of the tri method road/river
iron/. Indeed, Le Havre has in addition to modes truck driver and railway a
river service road by the Seine going up the river until the Paris area,
principal distribution center of the port. Shipping allows, one knows it, of
the economies of scale, an advantageous transshipment, interesting temporary
storage capacities. Thus, the ports located at the mouth of a navigable or
suitable river, like Le Havre, are privileged.
However, the terrestrial traffic of maritime containers in the Le
Havre-native back-country is primarily carried out by road way. The terrestrial
traffic is divided besides only between the road for 82,5% in 1997 and the rail
for 16%. The water way at most does not carry out 1,5% of pre and terrestrial
post-routings of containers, thanks to the launching of regular between Le
Havre and Gennevilliers in the north of Paris by the GIE Logiseine.
The road thus remains the basic element for the pre one and
post-routing. It assumes nearly 83% of the traffic with some 250 companies
which carry out more than 5000 movements per day. The proximity of the Paris
area, 1st market of Le Havre, the anteriority of the truck in transport of
approach and bursting and the asset of the road mode in the operation of the
companies in tended flows explain this preponderance. The road transport has,
these last decades, concentrated the main part of the investments public and
thus made remarkable great strides. The flexibility of the road alignment
allows convey which uses it to reach any geographical point almost, it is
quasi-ubiquity (P. Merlin). The road transport is the only means of
transport to being able to ensure of the services carries to door, it is very
powerful and very profitable on short distances inexpensive bus.
The road offer is thus very abundant.
For the road conveyers, the activity of traction of containers is
primarily a regional activity since :
§ 10% of flows relate to destinations lower than 50 km
§ 20% of flows have for origin or a destination the
remainder of the area Upper Normandy
§ 47% of the traffics relate to the Island of France
§ 20% of flows come or are intended for the other French
areas
§ 3% only of the traffics concern the foreigner
Lastly, 10 to 15% of the terrestrial movements concern harbor
brouettage, i.e. the road transport intended for the agglomeration havraise and
asserted by handling docker.
The maintenance of the competitiveness of the road offer supposes
however that the infrastructures, gauge interconnection are still improved. The
highly developed NORTH-SOUTH axes (A1 and A6), with the detriment of western
axes/is do not offer solutions to the port of Le Havre. Worse, it is an
unhoped-for gift with the ports of the Benelux countries, which forward thus
more easily by France and on the natural hinterland native of Le Havre
«scrapes thus». To contribute to the development of the port of Le
Havre, it would thus be advisable to consolidate the road terrestrial service
road of its hinterland.
After progress of these last years (whose startup of the Bridge
of Normandy) and improvements nearest towards Amiens/St Quentin on a side,
Caen/Rennes of the other, new axes of penetration will have imperatively to
follow : it is the case of A28 Rouen/Alençon and the connection
between A29 and A28 in order to remove discontinuity existing between the
Bridge of Normandy and the axis Calais/Bayonne. But the native of Le Havre is
especially petitioning of an axis of skirting of the Paris area ; it goes
there from the recovery of the traffics of the east of France which rocked
towards Antwerp and Rotterdam. The setting with 2x2 ways of the RN31
Rouen/Rheims would contribute to it. In the same way, the improvement of the
RN154 with 2x2 ways between A13 (Louviers) and A10 (Orleans)- axis
Rouen/Chartres/Orleans would allow the southern skirting of the Paris area in
direction of south-west, of the valley of the Rhone and the south-east of
France.
However, the native of Le Havre notes the delays taken in the
installation of the most important sections : the road of the estuaries-
large by-pass going from Dunkirk to Bordeaux took two of delay, great skirting
by Amiens/St Quentin/Rheims will be brought into service only in 2003.
Railway side, the offer of transport is less important. 16% of
the traffic of containers were treated by the railway mode in 1998, the railway
share of market should reach 20% in 2005.
It is necessary to note however that iron because of its high
cost is profitable only on long distances, its participation is high in the
traffics of terrestrial contribution since the most distant areas. The
consistency of its contribution brought to the structuring of the hinterland of
the port of Le Havre is thus compressed, the Island of France and the Upper
Normandy- the principal distribution centers of the port thus remaining in the
field of the road which on short distances is most advantageous by far. The pre
market and railway post-routing of the containers in Le Havre in 1997, large
war-horse of the Norman port, in a context of permanent change due to the
adjustments of the strategies armateuriales increased only by 4% while the
total number of limp handled on the quays carried out a historical jump of
17,4%.
The railway mode represents nevertheless a surface transport with
a future making it possible to widen the market of the hinterland of Le Havre
towards the international one.
What applies to the road is also valid for the railway service
road : Le Havre is petitioning above all a large railway axis on Amiens,
Rheims and Chalons out of Champagne which would allow, always by avoiding the
Paris area, to serve is France, the Central and Eastern Europe, Switzerland and
would facilitate the access to the Italian and Spanish markets. The port native
of Le Havre would thus wish that be concretized the inscription of this axis to
the diagram transeuropéen of combined transport, which implies its
inscription with the national directing diagram as a preliminary.
In Le Havre, the offer of railway service is the fact of two
operators :
the New Company of Containers (CNC)
The CNC, subsidiary of the SNCF, operator of combined transport,
manages terminals and a fleet of specialized coaches. More directed towards the
chargers, it proposes complete services of door with door, possibly including
the supply of the containers.
Its activity is exerted in two fields :
· sea traffic for the terrestrial way of the containers
towards or since the ports
· continental traffic for the transport of freight out of
containers or mobile cases of various volumes in France and Europe.
The CNC proposes starting from the Harbor the service road of 45
final building sites in less 24H by the network « COMBI
24 » which connects all French agencies CNC thanks to a system based
on the nodal point of Villeneuve St George and a hundred terminals in
Europe.
Each day, of the service roads by trains blocks are ensured by
the department « Naviland European Services " of the CNC, on the
principal destinations of the Hexagon, of England, of the Benelux countries, of
Italy, of Spain, of Germany and Portugal.
5 departures and 5 arrivals are proposed daily in Le Havre.
Building site CNC in Soquence Le Havre known as « The
Harbor-Combi » consists of a platform of 8000m ² in roadway
reinforced for an exploitation with monopiece mobile cranes. It has two 350
meters length ways which can accommodate each one 17 S60 coaches. The annual
average activity of this terminal is 12000 mobile cases at the beginning and
6000 on arrival, primarily of continental origin. The building site is equipped
with important means for the handling of the containers and the mobile cases
(gantries of 40 tons, automobile cranes, elevators), with road sets thanks to a
network of conveyers specialized for the connections between the building site
and the places of production as well as quay levels to store the containers,
vacuums or full.
Intercontainer/Interfrigo (ICF)
ICF, arranges supranational commune with the whole of the
European companies of railroad (kind of co-operative of networks), ensures
since 1967 by means of trains blocks international massive transport of
containers or mobile cases, and in particular the approach or the railway
evacuation of containers forwarding by the seaports since or towards some 650
European terminals, via its network « Quality Net » serving
the principal industrial centers in Europe thanks to a system of hub in
Metz/Fine sand. This makes of it the 1st operator of transport combined in
Europe.
ICF does not market that services of door with door. In 1997, ICF
transported 1,3 million EVP.
The representation of Inter Container Inter Refrigerator is
ensured in France by the SNCF (CNC) and of the local agencies as the Logistique
company Carries Océane (LPO) installed in Le Havre since the beginning
of 1998 which deal with all the operations of the rail-bound transport
(organization of the loadings, establishment of the contracts of
carriage...).
3 departures and 3 arrivals per week are proposed in Le Havre by
the network Quality Net of ICF.
One can also mention the existence of the operator of transport
combined rail/Novatrans road which carries out rail-bound transports
of semitrailers not accompanied by the technique by the Piggyback traffic, of
mobile cases and containers.
Since Le Havre, Novatrans offers daily services towards Italy
(Novara) and 3 times per week for Perpignan serving Spain.
The offer of transport is however not, because of the increase of
the frequencies and the massification of the traffics, rather high. The harbor
authorities havraises thus claim étoffement services offered by the
railway operators and the development of powerful additional infrastructures
suitable for appreciably increase the rail-bound offer of transport in Le
Havre.
Cheaper than the rail, the water way specializes more and more in
the carriage of standardized goods conditioned in units of load on relations on
which regular convoys of containers are organized : it is the case of the
line Le Havre/Gennevilliers exploited by the GIE Logiseine.
The water way can also contribute to the massification of the
traffic container. Even if the starting of the line Le Havre/Gennevilliers were
slow, it goes up in power. Started from 0 in 1994, Logiseine evolves/moves at
present on a rate of 12.000 EVP per annum in source or bound for Paris-Terminal
SA, which manages the multimode terminal of the wearing of Paris Gennevilliers
(of which the Port authority of Le Havre took a participation in the capital in
order to give its support for the transport combined of containers on the
Seine). Three departures are proposed each week, with convoys of approximately
200 EVP, with the forwarding agents and the beginning of Gennevilliers.
The river profession, on the Seine and elsewhere, thus redeployed
its offer in direction of freight with strong added value, in addition to
materials traditionally transported such as the petroleum products and
chemical, the agricultural produce and food and building materials or coal.
The water way is of space interest more limited but it is means
of a sure and economic transport for weighty the nonperishable ones, in
particular the solid vracs and liquids, and the containers, of the products not
requiring fast deliveries because of the slowness of transport : 12 km/h
of average without the stops with the locks.
However, the share of the river mode in the service road of the
hinterland native of Le Havre is very weak, hardly 2% against 50% for Antwerp
and 55% (700 000 EVP per annum on the Rhine) for Rotterdam which profit from
direct relations with the heart of Europe.
If Le Havre is if little served by the river transport, it is
initially because the network of the French inland waterways is only one dead
end. The river service road of Le Havre is indeed limited to the Paris area.
None the French ports is connected to a river system large gauge at long
distances serving the great European continental economic centers.
However, the harbor authorities of Le Havre, Port authority of
Paris and Logiseine are linked to develop the water way, which can, it also to
contribute to the massification of the service road of the back-country even if
this one is limited to the Paris area. Whereas the railway approach of Paris
ridges on many problems, it would be reproachable to be deprived of the
potential which represents the water way which makes it possible to return the
containers to the doors even of the capital. This is why the diagram of
installation of Port 2000 includes/understands the opening in the current
southern dam of the port native of Le Havre would allow the river units coming
from the tidal dock to directly gain the future quays. In addition, a terminal
dedicated to river could take seat in the wet dock of the ocean. A system of
brouettage in exclusive right of way would connect to the terminals of Port
2000. But the high cost of these installations caused in the public authorities
of many reserves which would bring the restriction of the project on certain
points and in particular the dam of protection appreciably less long which
would allow a saving in 250 million francs but would lead on the abandonment of
a direct service road of the future terminals by the inland navigation.
One estimates according to all these factors that the river could
adapt all the same 3% of terrestrial flows by 2005.
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