Dresden Alberthafen Now with Daily Connection to the Port of Rostock

The Saxon Inland Ports Oberelbe GmbH (SBO) now offers a new environmentally friendly transport alternative with the handling and loading of semi-trailers onto the rail. Since the beginning of the year, a train has been operating daily on the route Dresden – Rostock – Dresden. The operator of the train is the Austrian-based LKW Walter Internationale Transportorganisation AG.

(Dresden/Rostock) Since the beginning of the year, a full train of the Austrian logistics service provider LKW Walter has been operating daily with trailers on the route Dresden – Rostock – Dresden. The destinations for the trailers are in Scandinavia, Saxony, the Czech Republic, and also in Poland. The transport time between the TrailerPort Alberthafen Dresden and the port in Rostock is six hours. In Rostock, the trailers are directly reloaded onto ferries to Scandinavia. Thus, within 16 hours, the southern regions of Sweden and Denmark are directly connected to Saxony, the Czech Republic, and also Poland.

Important Contribution to Modal Shift

Transport Minister Martin Dulig: »With this new offer at Alberthafen Dresden, semi-trailers can be loaded directly onto the train – transported quickly and ecologically on a ‘Rolling Highway’. By handling trailers in the inland port of Dresden and the overseas port of Rostock, the partners are making an important contribution to shifting freight transport to the environmentally friendly mode of transport rail, thus relieving our roads and strengthening the multimodal transport chain. Of course, we hope that more companies will take advantage of this offer and that we can further increase the share of freight transport on the rail in favor of relieving the highways.« At the end of 2019, the SBO contacted the company LKW Walter as part of the EU project CorCap* with its Czech subsidiary CSP and Rostock Ports. Together, they developed the idea for a TrailerPort, which has now been successfully implemented. In addition to utilizing existing infrastructure, the SBO invested approximately 500,000 euros from its own funds in the areas of IT, handling, space provision, and transshipment technology.

Particular Importance of Inland Ports

SBO Managing Director Heiko Loroff: »In light of the need for modal shift, inland ports across Europe currently hold particular importance. The ports already have the necessary infrastructure, technology, and trained personnel. They are located at existing logistics hubs and thus have the corresponding opportunities for the rapid implementation of shift projects.« An important factor for the ultimately successful implementation of the project was access to the Czech market through the subsidiary CSP with its ports in Decin and Lovosice. Since a large part of the users of this transport line is located in the Czech Republic, the market knowledge and access of the SBO have been a significant advantage and ultimately led to LKW Walter choosing SBO as a comprehensive service provider. Furthermore, the location of Dresden is excellent as a transshipment point, as the city is conveniently located on the highways A4/A13/A14/A17 as transport routes towards Poland and the Czech Republic.

About SBO

The Saxon Inland Ports Oberelbe GmbH (SBO) is a multimodal logistics company and operates six of its own inland ports along the Upper Elbe: Dresden, Riesa, Torgau, Dessau-Roßlau, Decin (CZ), and Lovosice (CZ). Each of the locations offers trimodal transshipment options, allowing the transport modes of inland shipping, rail, and truck to be optimally combined to ensure reliable transport chains.*CorCapCorCap stands as a synonym for ‘Capitalising TEN-T corridors for regional development and logistics’ and deals with improving transport connections in the Orient/East-Med corridor (OEM), which runs in the Trans-European Transport Network TEN-V, among others, from the German sea and inland ports through the Czech and Slovak Republics to Hungary. The project started in April 2019 and is expected to be completed in 2022. The OEM corridor connects Central and Southeast Europe. Due to the emerging bottlenecks in the section Dresden-Prague and the limited capacity along alternative TEN-V corridors operated via the Vienna node, urgent measures are needed to improve multimodal access to rail and inland shipping traffic.Photo: © SBOwww.binnenhafen-sachsen.de