IG Ship Captains Against the Planned Basel Dock 3

More than a hundred professional ship captains, who are well acquainted with the Basel Rhine ports from their daily work, have joined forces to form the IG Ship Captains Basel (IB SFB). They aim to promote shipping traffic with Basel. In particular, the IG SFB is fighting for the preservation of Dock 1 and against the construction of a new Dock 3.

(Basel, 05.02.2020) The interest group IG Ship Captains Basel (IG SFB), founded last autumn, has sparked great interest among the professional ship captains who regularly call at the Basel Rhine ports. Within a few weeks, over a hundred professional ship captains have already joined the IG SFB. The trigger for the establishment of the IG SFB is the plans of the Basel government to abolish the current Dock 1 in the Rhine port of Kleinhüningen and replace it with a new Dock 3, which is much less favorably located from a traffic engineering perspective.With today’s decision by the Federal Council to create the legal basis for underground freight transport, the generational project CST has reached another milestone. The law is a prerequisite for the possible realization of a forward-looking overall logistics system. It creates clear conditions for the construction and operation of the facilities and the necessary legal certainty for investors. This paves the way for a unified planning approval process.

For an Efficient Shipping Operation

The Basel ship captain and initiator of the new IG, Thomas Schweizer, is convinced: “For an efficient operation in the Basel Rhine ports, Dock 1 is absolutely essential. The directly accessible Dock 1 can already be operated extremely efficiently today and could be specifically further developed with minimal investments to meet the future needs of professional shipping.” The planned Dock 3, which is to be realized with millions of taxpayer money according to the plans of the Basel government and replace the existing Dock 1, is seen as inefficient from the shipping perspective. The planned Dock 3 is to be connected at a right angle to the existing Dock 2 and would only be accessible to ships via the narrow Dock 2.

Dock 3 Deteriorates Competitiveness

“Dock 3 can only be accessed in one-way traffic and with an additional tight 90-degree turn,” says Schweizer: “These are extremely demanding and time-consuming maneuvers, especially since the whole process has to be repeated in reverse. For shipping, this means: increased costs, as arrival can no longer be planned, and less efficiency. This significantly deteriorates the competitiveness of shipping compared to road and rail.” Graphic: IG Ship Captains www.ig-schiffsfuehrer.ch