Port of Rotterdam: Vision for Speeding up Action

As the world’s leading ports strive to keep up their position, Rotterdam Port comes up with Port Vision 2030, a vision document that articulates the ambition and the vision of the port and its industrial complex.

Titled Port Compass, the vision document covers the length and breadth of the various milestones that the leading port in Europe can achieve with the help of its clients, government departments, knowledge institutes and societal organisations. The document lists out nine success factors, each with a concrete ambition and followed by a number of different challenges that need to be fulfilled to realise the ambition – investment climate, land use, accessibility, shipping, environment, safety and quality of life, labour, city and region, laws and regulations and finally innovation.

According to the report, in 2030, the Rotterdam industry and energy sector will function as an integrated complex with Antwerp. This will mark the emergence of the largest, most modern and sustainable petrochemical and energy complex of Europe. This complex will compete on world scale through its cluster advantages, integrated supply chains and energy-efficiency. Towards this end, the transition to a sustainable energy supply and bio-based chemicals is in full swing, the document notes.

Together, the logistics and industrial pillars of the port complex, i.e. the Global Hub and Europe’s Industrial Cluster, make up the port of the future. In 2030, the Global Hub will have the following characteristics:

1.   Global and intra-European freight flows: Rotterdam will be an important hub for freight flows from and to Europe and a key junction for cargo flows between other continents. This involves both existing freight flows, such as oil, petrochemical products, containers, coal and new products such as LNG, biomass and CO₂.

2.   Chain efficiency: The logistics chains that run via Rotterdam are the most efficient in the world. Collaboration and coordination between logistics players is of essential importance in this context.

3.   Sustainable hub: The Port of Rotterdam is part of logistics chains with the smallest ecological footprint per tonne-kilometre in the world. This can be achieved by sustainable modes of transport, clean fuels and efficient logistics chains.

4.   Integrated port network: The port is closely connected to logistics hubs found in the hinterland and to other seaports. Hubs in the hinterland will increasingly develop into gateways for the global hub.

5.   High-level activities in the region: Both the global hub and Europe’s industrial cluster generate a large number of jobs and business activities in the region, for example, by attracting business houses, logistics management organisations, industrial service providers, [maritime] maintenance companies, inspection services and [European] head offices.

Based on the vision, the success factors and the trends, developments and estimates for cargo throughput, crucial actions need to be taken.

Transition of the industrial sector

The European population is ageing, Europe has relatively small resources of fossil materials, and economies elsewhere in the world are growing at a far higher pace. However, the European market is mature, the document notes.

Fortunately, the industry in the Rhine-Scheldt Delta is an exception. Thanks to its favourable location for the supply of raw materials, major cluster advantages and economies of scale (companies use each other’s (residual) products), the industry in this area enjoys a solid competitive position.

However, further integration is needed, both between companies in Rotterdam itself and between the Antwerp and Rotterdam industrial sectors, to create greater economies of scale and cluster advantages for the companies in the Delta.

Connecting companies with pipelines will basically create one single large industrial cluster. This enables companies to produce more efficiently.

Efficient logistics chains in a European network

In the Netherlands and North-West Europe, a network of logistics hubs that are connected to Rotterdam via roads, rail and inland shipping need to be developed. Via such a network of inland hubs, cargo can be transported to its destination fast and efficiently. The inland hubs need to develop into gateways

for the port and Customs should be able to check the cargo at these locations.

Venlo and Duisburg already serve as important hubs for rail transport and inland shipping. Ultimately, the ambition is to realise a comprehensive European network of intermodal inland hubs.

Improving accessibility

Accessibility is crucial for the port. In many cases, improving accessibility does not solely come down to constructing extra infrastructure. It is important to better utilise the capacity of existing infrastructure. At the moment, there are regular tailbacks during rush hours, while at other times of the day, the roads are very quiet – particularly at night. To utilise the available infrastructure more efficiently, Rotterdam

needs to realise proactive traffic management for all modes of transport.

Improving the quality of life

In 20 years time the economic activity in the port area is expected to have increased by at least 150 per cent. All of this growth needs to be realised within environmental thresholds that will probably only become stricter in the years to come. Consequently, investments in measures that reduce noise and air pollution are needed. 

Innovation & decisiveness

In the future, the Netherlands will find it increasingly difficult to compete on the basis of traditional production factors. Knowledge promises to be the competitive factor of the future. It is needed to make targeted investments in the development and application of knowledge that will help to promote the traditionally strong sectors of the Dutch economy. Social innovation is an important component in this context, together with the renewal of legislation and regulations.

The pace of planning, decision-making and realisation needs to increase, among all parties involved. And the crucial actions for realising Port Vision 2030 are:

• For Europe’s industrial cluster:

-          Transition towards more bio-based (chemical) industry, increasing sustainable energy             production and carbon capture and storage of CO₂ (CCS)

-          Further integration and clustering of industrial activity, within Rotterdam and at the level         of Antwerp-Rotterdam

• For the global hub:

-          Substantial improvement of the efficiency of logistics chains

-          Improvement of the European transport network

• Improving accessibility:

-          Optimisation of the utilisation of existing infrastructure

-          Vigorous expansion of the road network with the missing links ‘Blankenburgtunnel’ and         ‘A4-South’

• For the improvement of the quality of life

-          Reducing noise and air pollution

-          Development of green zones between the port and the region

• Innovation & decisiveness

-          Besides technical innovation, more than anything else, each of these actions require social       innovation: decisiveness and organisational capacity are key concepts in this context

Three ports in the cluster are already working towards strengthening hinterland infrastructure. Recently, the port directors – Eddy Bruyninckx of Antwerp, Jens Meier of Hamburg and Hans Smits of Rotterdam – expressed their support in the European Parliament for further development of a European intermodal transport network. They said rail and inland navigation corridors, of which the three ports are the entry and end points of important corridors, are essential for European transport in the future. 

The three ports believe that the funds which the European Commission will make available should not merely be distributed “politically” among the 27 EU member states but invested in areas where the largest volumes of freight are concentrated – the corridors from the seaports into the hinterland.