The protracted Rhine train line closure and the restarting of goods traffic on the North-South Europe axis after the summer slowdown are the main reasons behind the current load capacity deficit.
“Currently available trucks cannot compensate for the lack of trains along the Swiss corridor and the back-up solutions currently being offered by the railways are still unreliable and insufficient in capacity terms”, says Marco Manfredini, Arcese Group’s COO. “After the summer break, our clients’ orders are returning to full operation leading to a concentration of semi-trailers in the train terminals ready to be loaded and thus limiting their ability to take on new ones”.
And it is precisely in order to solve this load and loading capacity backlog that Arcese has worked actively right from the start to deal with the emergency and guarantee service operativity, reinforcing and offering back-up solutions. These include an initiative developed jointly with the Grimaldi Group to launch a ro-ro service between the ports of Antwerp and Savona on 2nd September 2017 when a first ship left for Italy with 30 semi-trailers on board. The new connection operates on a weekly basis with an average service capacity of more than 100 semi-trailers.
The goal of this solution - which further consolidates the partnership between Arcese and Grimaldi- is to guarantee the market a larger loading capacity in the face of this emergency, reduce the transport backlog and, above all, deal with new requests. In fact, the current railway back-up solutions are limited in capacity to less than 50% of optimal capability and the terminal infrastructure is saturated.
“With this short-sea solution, together with the railway back-up services and our own vehicle fleet, we are working hard fully for solutions capable of limiting the impact of the Rastatt closure”, adds Marco Manfredini, concluding “We are very satisfied with the support received from Grimaldi Group in this emergency as the service has been implemented very quickly. Therefore, we hope to be helpful in supporting our customers’ need at this critical time”.
