D. Shuttles
The technical and commercial optimization of the railway offer
appears as a priority for the native of Le Havre which judges that the railway
offer in Le Havre is not sufficient on behalf of the operators present.
Thus, Port authority of Le Havre works for the installation of
lines dedicated freight in order to optimize the offer and to offer a product
which is in competition, in price, reliability and time, the leitmotiv being
always the same one : massifier. To answer the request increasing for
terrestrial service road and in particular for rail-bound transport of the
customers havraise, it is necessary to stimulate competition between the
railway operators in order to cause a drop in the prices of the transport of
pre or post-routings terrestrial.
The PAH thus proposes to replace gradually and for relevant
relations by their volume of traffic, the trains directed systematically
towards the nodal point by a system of given rhythm shuttles since the volume
of traffic generated by a given area justifies a direct circulation.
The wearing of Antwerp and Rotterdam largely based the railway
service road of their hinterland on the installation of such shuttles.
The market demand east to obtain a daily removal at a competitive
cost. The response of the offer is to propose a daily service and a
massification of the routing.
The technique of the nodal point which is not specifically
railway, is the consolidation of the traffics via a central platform.
The technique of the shuttle is the full employment of two oars
of materials in going/return between two points.
The passage by the nodal point implies that the schedules of the
trains are dependant on the phase of consolidation which lasts a few hours all
the same and generates costs of operation. The implementation of a shuttle
implies that each day the relation provides in the two directions the food
necessary to financial balance.
These two procedures are different but they are not opposite.
Both are instruments of distribution, one fascinating support on the economy as
a whole, the other fascinating support on the saving in only one axis. They are
sometimes even complementary bus not badly of shuttles are bound for nodal
points or rather of centers of correspondence.
The PAH, in partnership with the operators CNC, ICF or Novatrans
wishes to deepen its hinterland by the multiplication of such shuttles,
dedicated to the containers between Le Havre and some destinations chosen, in
particular in direction of the east and the south-east of France.
The response of the place of Le Havre has as a name
« Shuttles Le Havre » (LHS), limited company with statute
of commission agent, (kind of co-operative of purchase which buys of capacity
with the CNC), marketing rail-bound transport, while having bought railway
shuttles as a preliminary operating on long distances or more simply from
« slots ». The services will be then resold directly by LHS
with the customers.
The UMEP is currently the principal shareholder of LHS. The trade
associations were solicited just as the private companies. In the round table
also the PAH for 34% of the capital appears.
The PAH already set up of such services by supporting the
financial risk lasting the time of the rise in load of the services :
· a shuttle Le Havre/Lille
· a shuttle Le Havre/Lyon-Vénissieux
· a shuttle Le Havre/Strasbourg-Cronenbourg
Shuttle Le Havre/Lille
To serve North - Pas-de-Calais and to set up a network of
interregional traffics, Le Havre and the river port of Lille (this last is a
commission agent) are connected on line by a train block ICF, with a rotation
per week.
As an indication, the price of the rail-bound transport in each
direction (except handling) for a full container or vacuum is 650 francs for
one 20 ', of 800 francs for one 40 '. They were there conditions a priori
gravitational, but the distance is too short to make it possible iron to really
play its part. More especially as the prices of production seem more
interesting beyond the border, i.e. on the Belgian network and its
prolongations.
However, the area inhabitant of Lille close to the port of Le
Havre, is the 2nd import-export area of France after the Island of France. The
stake is thus of size. The PAH wishes thus, thanks to this line, to make rock
the traffics of Antwerp towards Le Havre by emphasizing the geographical
situation of the Norman port of 1st port touched at the importation and the
last at export. Le Havre thus seeks to conquer new markets by competing with
the services of the Belgian port on its hinterland.
The other major factor of attraction of the traffics is obviously
the cost of transport. The purpose of the shuttles are to minimize the costs
and times of transport, to make more competitive the offer with respect to the
competitor ports and to generate consequently more important volumes and to
conquer shares of market.
The purpose of the shuttle Le Havre/Lille is thus to compete with
the offer of river transport and fluvio-maritime at the beginning of the port
river of Lille and directed towards Antwerp and Rotterdam. The cost of
transport of a container on this axis (650 francs) is nevertheless still too
high to be able to compete with the services of the ports of north.
Shuttle Le Havre/Lyon-Vénissieux
Created in partnership with the CNC in the form of a triweekly
service since 1996, in reaction to a project of installation of a shuttle
Lyon/Rotterdam by the private operator European European Rail Shuttles (ERS),
the direct railway shuttle enters the terminals of the port and the platform of
the CNC with Vénissieux connected to the principal economic centers of
the south-east of Europe, made it possible to reduce the delivery periods of
approximately 20 hours.
This shuttle is a real success : 50.000 EVP were transported
since its launching. The CNC playing the game of the massification, the prices
could be appreciably lowered (up to 30%).
Shuttle Le Havre/Strasbourg-Cronenbourg
Strasbourg and its area constitute another layer of traffic
coveted by the native of Le Havre, but however dominated by the offer of the
wearing of Antwerp and Rotterdam.
Since January 1998, a shuttle of a capacity of 80 EVP circulates
with three to go/return per week between the Le Havre-native terminals and the
railway building site of the CNC to Cronenbourg, connected to the principal
economic centers of the European east. Competition obliges, the prices charged
are more or less aligned on those of the Rhine. Even if there remains a light
difference, this shuttle allures by a shorter transit time.
The product goes up in power with 600 EVP per month, which is all
the more appreciated on the place havraise that it had undergone full whip the
competition of the containerized services of the Rhine.
LHS intends to exploit later on into clean the shuttle on
Strasbourg, while putting in competition CNC and ICF in order to still minimize
costs and to become even more competitive on the offer of surface transport.
Extremely success of these first experiments, and particularly of
the shuttle on Lyon, the PAH wishes to develop this type of service road and to
offer a pallet widened of destinations through Europe by trains shuttles.
It proposes the installation of four new shuttles :
· Le Havre/Liege via Brussels
· Le Havre/Vesoul-Mulhouse
· Le Havre/Vienna-Sopron
· Le Havre/Milan
The organization of these shuttles and their marketing will be
the fact of an operational structure, in the course of constitution at the
instigation of PAH, and in which the port would be in a majority. Statute of
transport commissioner for this operation, the structure would negotiate the
purchase of trains near the railway owners, would ensure of them marketing and
the invoicing near the forwarding agents and armaments.
In the long run, and taking into account the number of non-stop
trains that the port estimates to generate, PAH asserts the adjustment of
railway routes dedicated to freight and in particular towards the east.
It acted by avoiding the Paris area with which the networks are
saturated, arranging the existing ways between Le Havre, Amiens, Rheims,
Chalons out of Champagne and Metz.
The release of such a route supposes work of infrastructures and
studies of exploitation.
The choice of the railway means of transport in the service road
of the hinterland thus appears at present undeniable being given the existing
potentialities of this means of transport and the will of the policies to
develop this alternative. It is from this point of view and this context that
the port of Le Havre eminently wishes to be served by a railway line to benefit
from these potentialities, like its European competitors. On the initiative of
the port of Le Havre, a project was founded to answer this waiting and to thus
make it possible to the first French port to conquer new markets and to
consider, with the support of the project « Port 2000 », a
more prosperous future.
Which is the nature of this project ? Which are the
conditions so that it is carried out and so that it is really effective
and profitable ?
III. THE RAILWAY PROJECT OF SKIRTING OF THE PARIS
BASIN WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK OF THE EUROPEAN CORRIDORS OF FREIGHT
It is thus on the rail that the essence of the competition goes
to serve the national and international hinterland. The development of Le Havre
will require powerful infrastructures of connections with the east of France as
well as the Central Europe and the south, making it possible to avoid a Paris
area blocked already well. Knowing that the competition between the seaports
will be exploited their capacities to serve the European hinterland on
west-east axes, the objective of the port of Le Havre is the creation of a
powerful axis towards the east.
The market of the transport of containers is, as we saw, in
process of extension and integration. The service road of the hinterland is
conceived from now on on a continental scale, European and the ports must
develop their terrestrial service roads in order to reach the great industrial
parks and the zones of distribution and conquer shares of market there.
The chart of flows of containers in Europe makes it possible
to visualize the routes of flows of distribution of the containers by sea or
terrestrial. It reveals several geographical areas of various importances
according to the density of the relations. One can see that the field of
competition of the large European ports are located in the traditional one
« blue banana » (The Benelux countries, Germany ex FRG,
Switzerland, Austria, Italy of north) which symbolizes a strong concentration
of the dynamic industrial areas of Europe strongly turned towards the
international trade.
« blue banana » is a place privileged for the
imports and exports largely calling upon the harbor infrastructures and the
terrestrial service roads for the routing of freight. This unit forms a closed
field where clash the ports majors of north, Antwerp, Hamburg and Rotterdam.
The principal handicap of Le Havre compared to its competitors of the North Sea
east its relative distance with respect to this economic unit and its close
relatively deserted hinterland. If the road is competitive up to 500 km,
beyond, nothing is worth iron to fill this geographical handicap and to play in
the same court as them « large ».
More than 220 million inhabitants in a space of 1000 km ray
around the Harbor 240 million for Rotterdam lies against. The Norman port, with
the development of the railway tool, thus has all its chances.
If it is good that the port is connected to a line dedicated to
the freight which connects it, beyond Strasbourg, on « blue
banana », this prosperous zone of Europe which extends from London in
Milan, while passing by Rotterdam and Hamburg, still is necessary it that the
final installations on the port ensure an effective sorting and the fast
loading of the trains and that those has a sufficiently powerful
infrastructure.
In a competing ultra context, France took delay compared to the
actions engaged at the terrestrial level in Northern Europe, since the choices
of the large armaments depend from now on, mainly, of the railway service
roads, those in particular which allow innerver the center of Europe.
Realistic, A. Graillot admits that « the Rhine creates
a basic zone pressure » draining on Rotterdam and Antwerp a
substantial package of limp in source or bound for Switzerland, of Rhenish
France and the south of Germany. But beyond the Rhine, while going more to the
east, to Austria or Hungary for example, the port can again be competitive.
Because the field of competition is not restricted any more with
traditional « blue banana », a new space which is strongly
bound to him, appears, made up of the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary,
Slovenia, Croatia, Poland... the PECO (Central European country and Eastern)
recently open to Western Europe and which are very petitioning of transport and
freight. Flows should thus concentrate more and more between the ports and the
final platforms of transshipment near these countries whose course will be
carried out instinctively by railway.
The progressive economic integration of the PECO in Western
Europe are and will be the principal factor of the new organization of flows in
Europe. It is under the pressure of the markets that built Europe and under the
influence of the evolution of transport.
Under the aegis of the European Commission, group TINA (Transport
Infrastructure Needs Assesment group) comes to make proposals for the choice of
the axes and points nodal to level or to create in the Central European
countries and Eastern in order to ensure the continuity of the networks
transeuropéens of transport. These proposals concretely consolidate the
emergence of a vast economic area in process of integration fast to the
European Union. The seaports thus see there a new outlet ready to reinforce the
dimension of their hinterland. There Le Havre sees a formidable advisability to
develop its hinterland on a space still saved by terrestrial harbor
competition. However, it will be necessary to go quickly because the other
ports will not remain a long time the weapon with the foot.
| 
