Intermodality - Serbia as the hinterland of the Port of Bar Sanja Bojić, Associate Professor, Faculty of Technical Sciences, University of Novi Sad Geographical position and transport network of Serbia Serbia is a landlocked country situated at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, in the middle of three geo-political entities: Danube macro-region, Adriatic-Ionian macro-region and Western Balkan 6 initiative. By analyzing and assessing the geostrategic and geopolitical comparative advantages of the Republic of Serbia in the wider European area, the main advantage of the Republic of Serbia is being the traffic connection of Western and Central Europe with Southeastern Europe and the Middle East, as well as the connection of Central European countries - the Middle Danube towards the South Adriatic, the Aegean and the Black Sea, or the Mediterranean. Serbia is crossed by the two main transport corridors recognized as Pan-European Corridors X and VII. According to the European Union TEN-T classification and latest indicative extension of TEN-T network to Western Balkan, former Pan-European corridors are replaced by branches of Orient/East-Med Corridor and Mediterranean corridor as shown at following pictures. Figure 1. Indicative extension of TEN-T network to Western Balkan [1] MultiAPPRO Multidisciplinary approach and solutions to development of intermodal transport in region 1 Main transport infrastructure in Serbia make sections of the main international corridors of the TEN – T core network (Corridor X, or Orient/East-Med Corridor and Mediterranean corridor and Corridor VII or Danube – Rhine – Main river corridor) and comprehensive network, where Routes 3, 4, 5, 7 and 9 are connecting Serbia with neighboring countries. Road network in Serbia has an approximate total length of 45.000 km, including approximately 800 km of highways, 5.000 km of first-level state roads, 11.000 km of second-level state roads and over 25.000 km of local roads. Railway network has approximate length of 5.000 km, out of which is only approximately 20% electrified and 10% double tracked. The railway network is mostly in poor condition with over 300 bottleneck spots, whose reconstruction is estimated to approximately 4 billion euros. However, at the moment, there is a great number of rehabilitations, re-construction and construction works on the network on-going. Highest development potential has the inland waterway transport (IWT). The Danube is the most important element of the inland waterway system in Serbia. With the Sava and the Tisa rivers, it creates a 1,680 km long network of waterways. The Danube’s section in Serbia (588 km) is navigable for all types of river ships. There are 8 international ports in the Serbian sector of the Danube: Apatin, Bezdan, Bačka Palanka, Novi Sad, Beograd, Pančevo, Smederevo and Prahovo. Currently, in accordance with the Strategy on Development of Waterborne Transport of the Republic of Serbia for the period from 2015 to 2025, a list of the most important investments is defined and initialized including: construction and reconstruction of Serbian ports, eliminating all critical sectors for navigation on the waterway network, further improvement of intelligent waterway transport systems. The most relevant parts of the transport network in Serbia for the intermodal connection to Montenegro is the section of the Route 4: road route Belgrade – South Adriatic E-763 and the railway route E-79. The Route Е-763: Belgrade – Pozega– Boljare (border with Montenegro) consists of 3 sectors: • Sector I Belgrade – Ljig (80.3 km) including sections: Belgrade (Surcin) – Obrenovac (17.6 km); Obrenovac – Ub (26.2 km); Ub– Lajkovac (12.5 km); Lajkovac – Ljig (24 km); • Sector II Ljig – Pozega (71.2 km) including sections: Ljig – Preljina (40.4 km); Preljina – Pozega (30.9 km) • Sector III Pozega – Boljare (border with Montenegro) (107 km). MultiAPPRO Multidisciplinary approach and solutions to development of intermodal transport in region 2 The most of the sector I and II of the Route E-763 have been constructed and reconstructed in the recent years (please see the Figure 2.). However, the sector III still remains as the project in the near future. [2] Figure 2. Status of the reconstruction of the route Е-763: Belgrade – Pozega– Boljare (border with Montenegro) [2] Regarding the railway route E-79, Serbian part of the railway line connecting Serbia and Montenegro will be reconstructed and modernized by the Russian Railways. According to the agreement, signed in Belgrade in January 2019, the reconstruction of the 210 km long railway section Valjevo – Vrbnica should start in 2022. The project will be financed with 57.5 million Euros from the Serbian national budget and with 172.5 million Euros from the Russian loan supported by the Russian Railways. MultiAPPRO Multidisciplinary approach and solutions to development of intermodal transport in region 3 Figure 3. Railway route Bar Belgrade [3] Unfortunately, there are no contemporary intermodal terminals in Serbia, but rather few bimodal container-handling terminals. Although, containers can be handled in some of the Serbian Railways marshaling stations as well as in the inland waterway ports on the Sava and Danube rivers, currently only four terminals in Serbia have regular railway connections with the sea ports in the region and are dedicated to the container handling on the daily basis. The terminals are located in Belgrade, Dobanovci, Sremska Mitrovica and Pančevo: 1. ŽIT Beograd 2. NELT Dobanovci 3. LEGET Sremska Mitrovica 4. DUNAV Pančevo. MultiAPPRO Multidisciplinary approach and solutions to development of intermodal transport in region 4 ŽIT terminal is located in Belgrade and represents the oldest road-rail terminal in Serbia. It is currently at the new location in the shipping park (park B) of the Belgrade railway station, the marshalling yard in Železnik. Although the new location now has only two tracks, ŽIT continued to service international container lines. In its current state, it can accommodate up to 4 trains a day. There is currently a problem with storage capacities of up to 1400 containers. According to the estimates of the ŽIT terminal, the existing container terminal covers about 40% of the total number of containers transported by rail, which represents about 15% of all containers coming to Serbia. The terminal has the regular liner service with the ports Rijeka, Kopar and Bar. The distance of the port of Bar from the ŽIT terminal measured on the railway infrastructure is only 476 km, which makes this port the closest port to this container terminal. NELT terminal is the central distribution and logistics center of the company NELT located in Dobanovci, near Belgrade. The terminal is connected by rail to all European ports and land terminals. The terminal is located 6 km of the intersection of the highways E-75 and E-70 and 10 km from the Airport Nikola Tesla. It offers regular weekly railway transport of containers to and from the ports of Rijeka and Pireus. [4] LEGET terminal is located in the Port of Sremska Mitrovica (75 km from Belgrade). It provides regular railway service to and from the port of Rijeka, several times a week. Considering that the terminal is located on the Sava river, theoretically it is possible transshipment of containers to the inland waterway vessels, however, it is not a standard service. The terminal handles between 10.000 and 15.000 containers a year. [5] DUNAV terminal is located in the Port of Pancevo. It started with its service in 2020. It is the first three modal terminal in Serbia. Its advantage in comparison to other terminals is its good traffic-geographical position, given that it is located at the intersection of two Pan-European corridors, Rhine-Main-Danube and road-railway corridor X, as well as at a distance of only 14 km from Belgrade. The current annual capacity of the terminal is 8,000 TEU with the possibility of expansion. [6] Economy and foreign trade of Serbia According to the Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia, the total import and export of Serbia in 2018 was 45,109 million USD. Thereat, 64% of the total external trade was with the European Union member states. The highest share of export of the Republic of Serbia had the Region Vojvodina (33.0%), followed by the Belgrade region (26.4%), the Region Šumadija and West Serbia (24.6%), the Region South and East Serbia (16.0%), and approximately 0.1% of total export is not classified by territories. The highest share of import of the Republic of Serbia had the Belgrade region (45.9%), followed by the Region Vojvodina (27.5%), the Region Šumadija and MultiAPPRO Multidisciplinary approach and solutions to development of intermodal transport in region 5 West Serbia (16.4%), the Region South and East Serbia (9.5%), and approximately 0.7% of total import is not classified by territories. [7] Structure of the export, according to the products’ destination (the principle of prevalence), was: reproduction products 55.6% (USD 9,442.0 million), then consumer goods 33.4% (USD 5,670.8 million) and equipment 11.1% (USD 1,883.1 million). Unclassified goods according to destination amounted to 0.9% (USD 1.2 million). Structure of the import, according to the products’ destination, was: reproduction products 57.7% (USD 12,642.3 million), then consumer goods 18.8% (USD 4,127.8 million) and equipment 12.5% (USD 2,733.9 million). Unclassified goods according to destination amounted to 11.0% (USD 2,416.5 million). [7] The major foreign trade partners of Serbia are presented in Table 1. Table 1. The major foreign trade partners of Serbia in 2018 [7] Exports USD million EUR million Imports USD million EUR million Italy 2237.0 1990.3 Germany 2774.6 2454.7 Germany 2131.5 1888.7 Italy 2207.5 1955.1 BiH 1371.3 1211.6 China 1767.7 1560.8 Russia 995.5 881.3 Russia 1586.2 1410.6 Romania 817.5 726.1 Hungary 1064.4 940.6 Serbian second major export/import partner are the CEFTA countries, with the surplus in external trade of USD 2051.6 million, resulting mainly from the exports of agricultural products, iron and steel, metal products, road vehicles; and import of iron and steel, hard coal and briquettes, fruit and vegetables, cork and wood.