PRESS RELEASE

EIA held its 17th General Assembly in Hamburg on 26 March 2010. It was followed by the ‘Intermodal Port Hinterland’ Round Table at the headquarters of the Hamburg Port Authority. Both events gathered a select group of key decision-makers from intermodal transport and logistics circles.

A number of decisions were taken at the GA, including the election of a new President, Ms. Hanja MAIJ WEGGEN, former Transport Minister in the Netherlands and former EU Member of the EU Parliament, currently playing an active part in the political ‘Stoiber Group’, the aim of which is to reduce bureaucracy in Europe. She replaces private intermodal operator Livio AMBROGIO, who showed his willingness to continue to play an active part in the Association as its Vice-President.

The Assembly accepted several new members: GEODIS; Lithuanian Railways; Port of Hamburg Marketing; Sofia Yana Intermodal Terminal. In joining the association, these new members have shown their commitment to the intermodal cause and the interest that Baltic, Bulgarian and French players have in being connected with the intermodal movement in Brussels. Walter SCHULZE FREYBERG from Polzug Intermodal was newly elected to the Steering Committee.

The EIA secretariat presented its 2009 results, which included lobbying achievements in relation to EU policy initiatives such as e-freight, TEN-T and Marco Polo, participation in EU projects such as EIRAC, TELLIBOX, EWITA and SMART-CM, the latter being an EU industrial research venture aimed at developing a technology-agnostic single window to streamline and facilitate port-customs-terminal hinterland container data flows in a Green Lane concept.

EIA in-house initiatives were also presented, examples being the new EU ‘Compendium for Freight & Logistics Best Practices’. This glossy single window web application has been established at the request of the EU Commission and shows dozens of successful freight market cases, explaining their sustainable, innovative and profitable products and services.

Sebastian JÜRGENS, Board member of HHLA, was guest of honour at a dedicated EIA dinner in the Hafenclub on March 25, on the eve of the ‘Port Hinterland’ Round Table. On March 26, DVZ journalist Michael HOLLMANN moderated lively discussions with DB Intermodal Services, DB Schenker Rail Deutschland, the Ports of Gothenburg, Hamburg, Klaipeda and TFG Transfracht, among others. The results of the session will be published in the first EU‘INTERMODAL YEARBOOK’ co-produced by EIA, NEA and ISL. The yearbook in Atlas format will address subjects such as port hinterland policies, freight flow statistics, modal split, inland terminals and networks, players, etc. For more information, go to www.eia-ngo.com

Click in the following links to download the PDF version of the Press Release and the summary of the Round Table presentations

The results of the Round Table will be combined with new port-hinterland statistics produced by EIA/NEA/ISL and received from various members of EIA. To be published in the first Intermodal Yearbook in Atlas format (Spring 2010). Send your network or statistics to peter.wolters@eia-ngo.com

 

Klaus Ebeling (EIA Secretary General), Sebastian JÜRGENS (Board member of HHLA) and Hanja Maij Weggen (EIA President)	EIA team: Klaus Ebeling (Secretary General),Livio Ambrogio (Vice President), Hanja Maij Weggen (President) and Peter Wolters (Deputy Secretary General)

 

 

Michael Hollmann (Moderator, DVZ) and Michael Tasto (ISL)	Volker Kraft (Fraunhofer/ SmartCM) and Padideh Gutzkow (NEA)

 

Participants Boat tour Port Hamburg