Exploration of future container transport to and from the Dutch hinterland Assessing the need for future policies Master Thesis Systems Engineering Policy Analysis and Management October 27th, 2011 Danitza Defares 1397303 Exploration of future container transport to and from the Dutch hinterland Assessing the need for future policies Master Thesis Project Faculty of Technology, Policy Analysis and Management Delft University of Technology Date: October 27th, 2011 Author: D. L. (Danitza) Defares Student number: 1397303 E-mail address: [email protected] Program: Systems Engineering, Policy Analysis and Management (SEPAM) Course: SPM5910 Master Thesis Project Graduation Committee Graduation Chair: Prof. Dr. Ir. L. A. (Lori) Tavasszy TU Delft, Faculty of Technology, Policy Analysis and Management, Transport and Logistics department First Supervisor: Dr. J. A. (Jan Anne) Annema TU Delft, Faculty of Technology, Policy Analysis and Management, Transport and Logistics department Second Supervisor: Dr. Ir. Drs. A.R.C (Alexander) de Haan TU Delft, Faculty of Technology, Policy Analysis and Management, Policy Analysis department External Supervisor: Drs. A.C. (Arwen) Korteweg Port of Rotterdam Authority, Port Development Division, Modalities department External Supervisor: Ir. M. (Maurits) van Schuylenburg Port of Rotterdam Authority, Port Development Division, Modalities department Source cover picture: Binnenlandse Container Terminals Nederland (BCTN) b.v. BCTN Den Bosch Preface The final part of my master program Systems Engineering, Policy Analysis and Management (SEPAM) at the Faculty of Technology, Policy Analysis and Management has been my master thesis research project. This thesis is the result of the research that I have conducted for in the last six months at the Port of Rotterdam Authority. Before starting my project at the Port of Rotterdam Authority, this organization was number one on my list of organizations for conducting my final research project. First of all, my interest in ports and freight transport started with my internship for my Bachelor Program at the Kingston Wharves Limited, the Port of Jamaica in 2007. Next to that, the fact that my father is the general manager of the Port of Paramaribo in Suriname, my interest in this field kept on growing. Finally, the convenience of living just five minutes from the World Port Center was definitely a positive factor. The main goal of my final project was to analyze the need for future measures regarding the inland terminal network in the Netherlands, since it is expected that the container flows to and from the Dutch hinterland will increase significantly in the next twenty to thirty years. Many different people have assisted me during my research and have contributed to the project. I am very grateful for this and would like to thank all of them for their support. I especially want to thank my graduation committee. First of all I want to thank my first supervisor from the Delft University of Technology, Jan Anne Annema for his support, for the time he invested in reading the many versions of my thesis and for providing me with feedback every single time. Secondly, I want to thank Alexander de Haan for being my second supervisor and for ensuring that I did not lose sight of the policy analysis point of view during the research. Thirdly, I want to thank my first supervisor from the Port of Rotterdam Authority, Arwen Korteweg, who also read all the versions of my thesis and provided me with constructive feedback. We have invested a lot of time and energy in the completion of the database for the Dutch inland terminals. The fourth person whom I would like to thank for his support is Maurits van Schuylenburg, my second supervisor from the Port of Rotterdam Authority. Especially in the first phase of my project, he provided me with a lot of relevant studies and reports to prepare for the research. Finally, I would like to thank professor Tavasszy for being the chairman of my graduation committee as well as for providing me with useful information through an interview. Besides the graduation committee, I would like to thank all the people that have provided information for my research. Staff members of the Port of Rotterdam Authority such as Roy Pigot, Nick van den Ende and Donald Baan have contributed a lot with regard to the data that was necessary for my research. Furthermore, Bob van Hell and Rene Kronieger who have helped a lot with the visualizations of the gap analysis. Next to that, the interviews with Peter de Langen, Bart Kuipers, Eric Nooijen and Johan Visser have been very helpful for my research. Finally, Mo Zhang, a PhD student at OTB has put a lot of energy and time in helping me with the application of a GIS- based network design and optimization model. Unfortunately, the results of this model were not used in my research. i Furthermore, I would like to thank all my colleagues at the Port Development division, especially those at the Modalities Department for sharing their thoughts with me and providing me with tips and feedback with regard to my project. Because of their kindness towards me, I have really enjoyed working at the Port of Rotterdam Authority. Last but not least I want to thank my family and friends for supporting me and helping me where possible. Special thanks go to my parents for reading, checking and where necessary correcting the many pages of my thesis. Danitza Defares October 2011, Rotterdam ii Management summary Background of the research The quality and reliability of the hinterland transport by barge, rail and road is important for the competitive position of the Port of Rotterdam in the logistics chains and networks. The expectations are that the container volumes will grow because of the development of the Maasvlakte 2 and expected growth of world trade. For this reason, it is important for the Port of Rotterdam that the inland terminal network will be able to accommodate these growing container volumes, in order to maintain its leading position. Previous studies have shown that the inland terminal network will be able to accommodate the container flows to and from the Dutch hinterland until 2020. It is unclear how this will develop in the period after 2020. For this reason the following research hypothesis has been formulated: The current Dutch inland terminal network will possibly not be able to accommodate the expected container throughput to the hinterland by barge and rail in 2030 in the different future scenarios. Scope of the research The scope of the research is defined by three elements. The most important scope of the research is the geographical scope; this scope is limited to the container transport between Rotterdam and the Dutch hinterland. In other words, flows with their origin and/or destination outside the Netherlands have been excluded. Furthermore the type of cargo is limited to containers and the transport network model that has been applied is the point-to-point model. Research objective The background of the research, the hypothesis and the scope of the research led to the following research objective: to identify in what way the expected volume of containers to and from the Dutch hinterland in 2030 can be accommodated in an efficient manner. Recommendations will be made to the Port of Rotterdam Authority in what way the inland terminal network can be strengthened by applying the dynamic adaptive (DA) policy framework. The DA policy framework supports decision makers in taking the inherent future uncertainties of the volume of containers in 2030 into account. In order to accomplish the research objective, the following main research question was formulated: Which policy actions can contribute to strengthening the inland terminal network in order accommodate the expected container throughput in 2030? Research approach With the aim of answering this question, the inland terminals that are currently active were identified first. This was necessary in order to be able to calculate the current capacity of the inland terminal network. Currently, there are 26 barge terminals, 6 rail terminals and 6 tri-modal terminals in the Netherlands. Together, these terminals form the Dutch inland terminal network and have a capacity of 4.744.000 TEU per year. Note that, in this report the capacity of a terminal refers to the approximate maximum throughput capacity of the terminal. In other words, the amount of TEU’s that a terminal can approximately handle per year. The second step that had to be taken in order to answer the main question was identifying the national container flows by barge, rail and road in 2008 between Rotterdam and the origins and destinations within the Netherlands. Based on this, the calculation of the total flow of containers to iii and from the COROP regions resulted in 3.861.000 TEU in 2008. The modal split of the container flows within the Netherlands in 2008 was as follows: Road transport – 2.523.000 TEU Barge transport – 892.000 TEU Rail transport – 446.000 TEU The container flows of 2008 were the input for calculating the prognoses of container flows in different scenarios for 2030. The scenarios included: Regional Community scenario – low growth WLO1 scenario Global Economy scenario – high growth WLO scenario Low growth scenario – low growth PoR2 scenario Global Economy scenario – high growth PoR scenario Based on the four scenarios, the total flow of containers will approximately be between 5 mln TEU and 12 mln TEU in 2030. The lower bound of this bandwidth is between 5 mln TEU and 7 mln TEU and the upper bound of this bandwidth is between 10 mln TEU and 12 mln TEU. Identification of possible gaps in the Dutch inland terminal network Based on the capacity of the Dutch inland terminal network on the one hand and the expected container flows in 2030 on the other hand, possible gaps in the inland terminal network were identified.