European cities promote inland waterways

   Politicians from European cities Brussels, Berlin, Budapest, Paris and Vienna plan to sign a charter on Friday to “step up the dialogue with the inland ports authorities and take the necessary decisions in view of tackling the growing challenges in terms of urban freight supply and distribution.”
   The charter will be presented to Siim Kallas, vice president of the European Commission responsible for transport.
   In a notice promoting the event, the European Federation of Inland Ports (EFIP) said that because of increasing urbanization “bringing goods in and out of European cities in a sustainable and efficient way will become one of the major challenges for European cities.”
   The EFIP, while applauding some goals in a recent EC transport white paper, had not envisioned an ambitious enough role for inland water transport in urban areas.
   “The strategy announced by the commission should be accompanied by a strategy for bringing the goods in a sustainable way towards the city centers,” the port group said.
   It noted that “many existing examples show that there are vast volumes going by inland water transportation and rail from seaports to inland ports on short and medium distances. Moreover inland waterway transport between inland ports often goes over very short distances.”
Finally, inland ports play an increasingly important role in urban freight logistics, where distances covered by barge are often from 5 to 50 kilometers, it said.