José Manuel Tofiño, mayor of Illescas Town Council, and Joan Calabuig, president of the Port Authority of Valencia (PAV), signed a Protocol for the collaborative promotion of the Iberum multimodal central platform’s future rail freight terminal.
The initiative includes the intention of the parties to form a majority public company (50% between the City Council and the Port Authority of Valencia) for the future development and viable operation of this project. It also provides for the future investment of a private operator (with a maximum of 40%, shippers and companies in the environmental area), which will provide and retain cargo.
The Protocol was also signed by Francisco Rodríguez, councillor for Town Planning, Miguel Ángel González and Susana Palacios, promoters of Plataforma Central Iberum and technical director, respectively, and Francesc Sánchez, general manager of Valenciaport, who was accompanied by Fátima Zayed, manager of VPI, and Néstor Martnez, deputy director.
The development of a multimodal terminal to service the import/export of a logistics area of more than 5 million m² is proposed in this project. Also, there are already XXL logistics warehouses of over 50,000 m² in service.
VPI Logística, an APV Group firm, is expected to participate in the building of the intermodal and operation management through a public tender.
The infrastructure consists of two 735-metre loading and unloading lanes, an 807-metre reception/dispatch lane, and heavy vehicle parking. The investment required to build this terminal is approximately US$16.5 million.
According to the consultancy firm that conducted the feasibility study for this project, the future platform’s potential intermodal transport demand is 18,500 TEUs in the first year of operation in 2025 and an “initial forecast of 6 trains per week that after the ramp-up of the first three years of operation, the terminal will have a frequency of 21 trains per week in 2028, increasing to 33 trains per week in 2050.”
