Duisburger Hafen AG (duisport) has acquired a stake in the German rail technology company CargoBeamer AG in a scheme to move road cargo onto the more sustainable rail services.
[s2If is_user_logged_in()]The percentage of the acquired stake will remain confidential, a duisport spokesman told Container News. However, both companies are jointly committed to shift road freight traffic towards rail thanks to innovative logistics concepts and are working towards digitally automated handling for semi-trailers from road to rail.
“Those who want to relocate transport away from roads have to transfer semi-trailers towards rail,” pointed out Erich Staake, duisport chairman, who went on to say, “CargoBeamer has developed a pioneering concept in environmentally friendly and sustainable mobility solutions.”
The fully automatic system of CargoBeamer is primarily used for transporting all kinds of craneable and non-craneable semi-trailers by rail, consisting of special rail cars and handling terminals. During loading and unloading the semi-trailers are driven and parked in the pallets, which are then shifted horizontally and fully automatically onto the waiting train, according to an announcement.
The Leipzig-based company enables the complete loading and unloading of a cargo train with up to 36 wagons in less than 20 minutes, while the process is completely digitalised.
The CargoBeamer wagon technology is also fully compatible with typical cranes and reach stackers used in classic intermodal transport. Therefore nearly every existing intermodal terminal is able to handle CargoBeamer wagons and customers such as freight forwarders bring their semi-trailers to the rail terminal from where they are transported to their destination by rail.
duisport has already started to expand its world-leading range of inland trimodal cargo handling with the first CargoBeamer trains. “In the future, our customers will get even more reliable and climate-friendly logistics chains – without burdening their vehicle fleet with high investments,” added Erich Staake.
The CargoBeamer system to transport semi-trailers as well as typical intermodal units has a capacity of 36 semi-trailers or 45ft containers and each semi-trailer can hold up to 26 tonnes of cargo.
CargoBeamer and duisport are also co-operating in a new joint terminal project, which is based on the CargoBeamer infrastructure. Both companies are working towards digitally automated handling for semi-trailers from road to rail. Combined with robotised warehouses and the electromobile distribution of goods for the “last mile”, an efficient European model for a sustainable transport network is to be created in the centre of North Rhine-Westphalia, according to a statement.
As part of this project, the new CBoXX technology from CargoBeamer is to be integrated directly. The high-volume rail container can be loaded and unloaded autonomously in the terminal. A high-performance offer for LTL (less than truckload) / LCL (less than container load) volumes can be brought to the market.
“duisport offers ideal conditions for expanding transport routes far into Asia in the future and, as the largest inland port in Europe, opens up enormous potential for connections throughout the world. duisport shares CargoBeamers vision of drastically increasing rail freight transport with innovative rail logistics”, explains Robert Osterrieth, chairman of the supervisory board of CargoBeamer AG.
To this day around 30% of the entire trade between China and Europe runs through the port of Duisburg, while every week 50 to 60 trains connect duisport and around 20 destinations in China.[/s2If]
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