HAVE WE ACTUALLY DONE ANYTHING SIGNIFICANT?

Black Sea

Baltic Sea

Gulf of Finland

Gulf of Bothnia

Adriatic Sea

LigurianSea Dalmatia

Føroyar

Austria

Belarus

Belgium

Bosniaand Herzegovina

Bulgaria

Croatia

Czech Republic

Denmark

Estonia

Finland

France

Germany

Hungary

Ireland

Latvia

Liechtenstein

Lithuania

Luxembourg

Moldova

MonacoMontenegro

Netherlands

Norway

Poland

Romania

Russia

Serbia

Slovakia

Slovenia

Sweden

Switzerland

Ukraine

UnitedKingdom

Syvash

Seine

Loire

Florence

Arctic Circle

Moscow

St. Petersburg

Murmansk

Arkhangelsk

Petrozavodsk

The White Sea

NECL II 2010–2013

Part-financed by the European Union (European Regional Development Fund

and European Neighbourhood and Partnership Instrument)

This is our way of resuming what we have worked with during this project. It’s not a full report but hopefully you will get a glimpse of what we have been doing and possibly the most interesting parts of the project highlighted.

The webpage will be up and running for at least five years after the end of the project and there you will find all the reports with full content.

www.midnordictc.net

Layout: Mediakettu

3

CONTENTS

The carrying idea of an easT-wesT corridor ............................................................................. 4

necL ii and our objecTives .............................................................................................................. 4

our achievemenTs ............................................................................................................................ 6

communicaTion and markeTing .................................................................................................... 7

evaLuaTion ......................................................................................................................................... 9

main projecT evenTs during 2010–2013 ..................................................................................... 11

capaciTy vs. funcTionaLiTy ........................................................................................................... 13

infrasTrucTure vs. Trade ............................................................................................................. 19

icT–The way To use avaiLabLe capaciTy? ............................................................................................................ 22

The projecT is finaLized–buT The reaL work has jusT begun................................................ 26

imporTanT deveLopmenT ............................................................................................................... 38

managing a projecT requires a basic organizaTion… ......................................................... 42

projecT managemenT..................................................................................................................... 42

organizaTion maTrix ..................................................................................................................... 42

sTeering commiTTee ....................................................................................................................... 42

To adapT and move on ................................................................................................................... 43

SUMMARY of NECL II 2010-2013

4

ThE CarryINg IdEa Of aN EaST-wEST COrrIdOr

1996 a group of people initiated by the private in-dustry NECLA (North East Cargo Link Association) sat down and figured out that this ongoing trend will not stand in the future. They predicted that there will be future changes for several reasons.

In order to study the possible concept of an east-west corridor they came up with the idea of start-ing a cross border project looking at the concept from several angles. Their main idea was that an east-west transport corridor could be an alterna-tive for goods transports, however bottlenecks have to be removed through reconstruction and investment in the transport infrastructure.

NECL II AND OUR OBJECTIVES “The North East Cargo Link (NECL) cooperation started in 1996. It was initiated by the private indus-try, but the interaction with regional and local au-thorities gradually increased. In June 2003, the pro-ject was granted financing from INTERREG III B BSR for a period of three years (NECL I).

The actions of NECL II will improve regional acces-sibility by developing the transport infrastructure and in that way contribute to successfully enhance the competitiveness of the Baltic Sea Region and the

Trade has always been an important part of man-kind for many reasons. Historically the only real possibility to trade was to use ships between dif-ferent ports and countries. Land based transport took too much time, the roads and railways were too undeveloped, with way too low capacity, so the only real option was to use sea transport.

however…Somehow, somewhere the idea changed over the years so more and more transportation was trans-ferred to roads, trucks and railways especially, re-garding short and medium range transports. Pos-sibly the idea of “Just in time” delivery as well as companies moving from having local storages and instead merging their storages to larger facili-ties and using trucks as “moving storage capacity”.

Low fuel prices over the years are most certainly one of the reasons for this “Just in time” delivery concept, together with existing or rather non-ex-isting environmental regulations

Nevertheless…The carrying idea of a transport east-west corridor has been in people’s minds for a long time. From that point of view our project isn’t anything new.

SUMMARY of NECL II 2010-2013

5

fulfillment of the Lisbon Strategy’s goals for growth and employment.

NECL’s activities to develop the intermodality and re-move goods from roads to railway and sea will con-tribute to Gothenburg Agreement for sustainability.

The Mid Nordic Corridor (MNC) of NECL (stretching through the middle parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland) cannot be developed without transnation-al cooperation between these countries.

A “Strategy for North East Cargo Link” was devel-oped as a result of the NECL project.”

The NECL II project was granted by EU to start 2010-06-11. However, for various reasons, the project didn´t start until December 2010, when the Project Manager and the Finance Manager were in place. The first Steering Committee meet-ing was held in Sundsvall 2011-03-11. The pro-ject plan, our idea how to proceed as well as all managers in the project were approved. Looking back, we had a little slow start, however by June we were up in almost full speed. One of our most important actions was to actually state our objec-tives in the project plan and by that we secured that everyone had the same mental picture re-garding what they were about.

The objective of NECL II project is to implement the Midnordic Green Transport Corridor Strategy in close co-operation with the national transport au-thorities and industry over the national borders through pre-investment studies, development of transport solutions, marketing of the corridor on a macro region level, and a continued development of a logistic ICT solution (Portal).

The output produced from the NECL II project will be of great importance for the attraction of region-al and national funds specifically allocated for in-frastructure improvements in different regional and national transport plans.

The project will contribute to a sustainable, environ-mental friendly Midnordic East-West “Green corridor”.

The project also contributes to the “Action Plan” of the “European Union Strategy for the Baltic Sea Re-gion “During the project duration (2011-2013)

The overall plan is to get official commitments (push it as far as it’s possible) according needed infrastruc-tural investments in order to establish the Midnor-dic Green Corridor as a fully operational transport alternative.

FIVE WPs IN THE PROJECTThe project was divided into five (5) different work packages, so called WPs, all with their own WP leader and objectives.

WP 1 was about Project Manager, Finance Man-ager and overall project management.

WP 2 was about communication and promo-tion mainly focusing on establishing the project among decision makers and stakeholders (e.g. In-dustry) over the three year period as realistic al-ternative. Get on the map!

WP 3 was mainly focusing on infrastructure needs in the corridor in order to get a fully operation-al transport corridor. The main idea was through studies in Norway, Sweden and Finland (in the ac-tual corridor) to establish reports as a foundation for decision makers on official level to use when deciding on actual implementation and invest-ments needs for the transport infrastructure in the area.

WP 4 main focus was through studies regaining business and trades create a base from where decisions regarding development and imple-mentation of effective transport solutions in the Midnordic Green Transport Corridor could be implemented. This was mainly done by produc-ing cargo flow statistics, forecasts, infrastructure facts, vital financial profitability figures and oth-er supporting data for the decision making for in-vestors interested in new cargo liner service be-tween Finland and Sweden

WP 5 The main focus was to transform an existing ICT system prototype to a fully operating trans-port matching system that works in the daily op-erations at freight managers and logistic centers.

SUMMARY of NECL II 2010-2013

6

OUR ACHIEVEMENTSThe objective of NECL II project was to implement the Midnordic Green Transport Corridor Strategy in close co-operation with the national transport authorities, industry and other stakeholders over the national borders.

The work was done through:• Pre-investment studies

• Development of transport solutions

• Marketing of the corridor on a macro region level and a

• Continued development of a logistic ICT so-lution (Portal)

All of our studies can be downloaded on our web-page.

In the end of the day…The studies and all work done in the project needs to be of actual use. They need to lead to significant proven actions.

Work done not accomplishing anything (perhaps a bold statement) really needs to be questioned.

So questions for us to answer are:• Did our work pay off?

• Did we make a difference?

• Did we push decisions over the top?

Was the project in the end a legitimate or not…? If we made it or not…well that’s for you to tell us and for us to find out.

The following pages cover our achievements on a summary level.

SUMMARY of NECL II 2010-2013

7

If no one outside the project knows who we are, what we are doing or going to do and finally what we have actually done…What’s the point?

HOW IT ALL STARTED…One of the first things we did in the project, even before we completed the GENERAL PROJECT PLAN, was to establish a COMMUNICATION PLAN. The EU name on the project, “NECL II”, didn’t really make any sense since North East Cargo Link was referring to a direction rather than a location. We all agreed that we needed to do something about it pretty fast.

After some arguing within the project manage-ment group we came up with the name MIDNOR-DIC GREEN TRANSPORT CORRIDOR. The name in-dicated both a location (Midnordic) as well the fact that we were aiming for an environmental friendly solution, a green transport corridor.

We realized that besides a strong name people re-member pictures and colors so the next step was to create a graphic profile including colors, lay-outs, PowerPoint’s, templates, etc. To be able to create all that we needed to have a logo… a logo showing what the project was all about. The Logo together with defined colors and the name “Mid-

nordic Green Transport Corridor” was then regis-tered as an official trademark.

We also realized from the start that we all came from very different backgrounds, different organ-izations, and not least important, from different countries. The project wasn’t established among the project partners from the beginning. What we needed was to have a joint inner mental pic-ture regarding what the project was all about. We needed to have the same basis from where we all worked and communicated.

The solution was to create a folder for everyone to use in their communication both internally as well as externally.

This idea to have project material produced e.g. pictures, folders, PowerPoint’s, templates, etc. has been the foundation of communication pretty much through the whole project. This has given us a possibility to have a uniform approach when communicating.

An important early action was to identify target groups for communication. Another early action was to decide how we were going to communi-

COmmuNICaTION aNd markETINg

SUMMARY of NECL II 2010-2013

8

cate both inside the project as well as towards tar-get groups.

Through the project we have pretty much have had weekly project conferences over the phone. This has given us the possibility to move fast, a possibility to bring up matters on the table early, before they turned to a real problem, or to catch a possibility in flight.

The Steering Committee has been meeting every six month in order to be able to approve the work done the previous moths as well as the planned work ahead. Success factor has been to set the meeting dates ahead giving everyone a possibili-ty to plan. We have also sent out material in before-hand so everyone knew what the meeting was go-ing to be about and decisions needed to be taken.

We also decided early how we were going to com-municate through the project. From that point of view the webpage has been playing an important role both for keeping track on our material and re-sults but furthermore as a point where important information could be downloaded. So in order to establish us as an important information point we didn’t upload only our own material on our web-page. We also uploaded other important materi-al and/or news concerning our project and sup-porting our efforts.

Other communication models in the project has been through advertising in newspapers, send-ing out information to pinpointed persons, semi-nars, meetings, TV, radio and not to forget face to face meetings.

In the end of the day the real challenging commu-nication situation through the project has been internally. The main issue has been that some partners didn’t have dedicated project resources allocated in their budget. No dedicated person working especially with project matters.

Much work was invested especially by our Fi-nance Manager in order to get basic progress and budget reporting functioning. The lesson learned is that all partners in a project need to have dedi-cated resources matching their project budget. A specific percentage of the project budget needs to be dedicated for basic project work and com-munication. Another lesson learned is that if you want to be part of international projects you need to have supporting internal processes in place.

So what is the idea about communication?We communicate for a purpose. We want to get effect from our work… We want to get a change in motion. The main idea on the last row is that communications needs to supports our efforts and make sure our project results gets out in the open so we can get things done the way we want.

formalizing the communication on top-levelThe main groups for communication through the project have been:

• Project partners

• Project management

• Decision makers e.g. EU, parliaments, politi-cians, authorities

• Stakeholders e.g. infrastructure owners, ports, combo terminals, business life, compa-nies, entrepreneurs, cargo owners, shipping companies, heads of logistics etc.

The GENERAL PROJECT PLAN is is important since it describes the project and all interacting parts as well as area of responsibilities and not to for-get expectations. The work with the general plan started rather early however was completed after the basic work regarding the COMMUNICATION PLAN, logos, document templates and the work with our trademark etc. where completed.

SUMMARY of NECL II 2010-2013

9

Evaluation before writing a project planBefore writing the project plan there was an im-portant evaluation stage needed in order to un-derstand the very essence of the project.

1) National Investments: Since most of the activ-ities are pointing towards a need to be a part of the national General Infrastructural Invest-ment Plan the biggest risk is to NOT being a part of this in the end of the project. Lot of effort needs to be invested on different lev-els to ensure being on the investment map. This means the project content needs to be so good so investment decisions are inevitable. This also includes lobbying on political level and with the market as well.

2) Timeframes: Some of the activities are expect-ed to deliver soon and other later. This means we in general need to ensure that we have re-serve time, if possible, in the end of the activi-ty in order to have the possibility to adjust the activity product if needed.

Another risk is timeframes vs. our plan get-ting on the political infrastructural investment map. This means each activity needs to evaluate country wise actions needed to ensure success.

3) Resources: To have the right recourses at the right time is crucial. This concern both own re-courses as well as any agency staff. Persons di-

vided to more than three (3) different projects and/or working areas needs to be considered as a general risk. This means that all resources need to be committed to the project and that their TOTAL engagement in different areas needs to be evaluated to ensure they actually have time enough to invest. This includes all levels and all parts of the project when it comes to engage-ment level in the project. Just to have a name in place doesn’t do the actual work needed.

4) Right attitude: It’s really crucial that all persons in the project have a general knowledge about the projects as well as a detailed knowledge on their area of expertise. Furthermore with the right attitude one can achieve miracles is a well-known fact. We only have three years to achieve our objectives. This means that we do need believers and hardworking people on all levels doing their best according to their area of responsibility.

5) Communication: Since this is large a cross boarder project with many partners involved, in total concerning many organizations, deci-sion levels and persons, it can be considered as a large organization as a whole. One major problem in large organizations is often lack of communication. In order to avoid this risk all levels need to put best effort in communicat-ing on a reasonable level e.g. respond to mails, attend to meetings, deliver their expected contribution in time, etc.

The main message through the project has been kept simple:The Midnordic Green Transport Corridor is a cost-ef-fective east-west route for transports.

additional messages: – The Midnordic Transport Corridor aims to be a sus-tainable, environmentally friendly transport corri-dor by e.g. removing goods from roads to railway and sea.

– NECL II –project aims to show the possibilities, po-tential and benefits of the Midnordic Green Transport Corridor to business life, decision makers and other related actors (e.g. municipalities and regions), also in order to affect the infrastructure planning.

SUMMARY of NECL II 2010-2013

10

We Need Good

Green Connections Now!

focus areas…During the project the emphasis has also especial-ly been to put the corridor in a larger perspective. We have stated the fact that the corridor is an im-portant alternative transport route supporting existing domestic main routes mainly going in north-south direction, which often are over-bur-dened. The potential of the Midnordic Green Trans-port Corridor lies in that it can ease the pressure on the existing overburden routes, and at the same time offer environmentally friendly options. The corridor has also been marketed as a possible so-lution regarding the global perspective support-ing future market development, transnational so-lutions as well as possible solution regarding fu-ture environmental regulations.

However in order to get a functional corridor we established so called “Main challenges” explain-ing what’s needed on the lowest basic level. With-out these functions we don’t have a corridor func-tion stretching all the way. This gave us the means to look at the problem in a wider perspective and encouraged us to cooperate outside the project and think outside the box. It also made our mes-sage really clear and easy to communicate. These three challenges made sense from a global per-spective and put the needs in a larger perspective.

1st main Challenge:Get the railroad on the Norwegian side electrified (The Meråker Line).

2nd main Challenge:Get reliable sea transport routes between Swe-den and Finland.

3rd main Challenge:Open up more INTERNATIONAL BORDER CROSS-ING POINTS for road and railroad transports be-tween Finland and Russia (…China).

The project has produced PR-material which tells about the corridor and the goals for the corridor, as an alternative transport route. Main material presented below, available also at http://www.mid-

nordictc.net/informationmedia .

Project logo and slogan (two versions of slogan, the other can be used even after the project is fi-nalized, without the footnote of NECL II -project). The aim is to emphasize the actual content and goal in the work, i.e. The Midnordic Green Trans-port Corridor, instead of the project title “North East Cargo Link II”.

In addition the project has used the slogan: We Need Good Green Connections Now!

Project website www.midnordictc.net was launched in March 2011. There has been 3 lan-guage versions, in order to serve different infor-mation needs – all versions have been updated regularly, including also interesting related news.

Statistics show that the website has increased its visitors constantly during the project. In average there are at the moment 420 visitors per week (statistics until June 2013).

Project ppt:s and flyers which present the project and corridor are also on website: http://www.mid-

nordictc.net/informationmedia/brochuresandppts

SUMMARY of NECL II 2010-2013

11

Map material of the corridor has needed updat-ing. General maps, but also more detailed. All are available on project website: http://www.midnor-

dictc.net/informationmedia/logosandmaps

a film animation was made in 2012 about the cor-ridor and it´s special features and goals: www.mid-

nordictc.net/animation. The film has been shown during meetings, seminars, fairs to emphasize the necessity to look at the larger picture, to use a global perspective when looking at domestic matters.

Press releases have been made e.g. related to main events and as publishing reports.

Examples:

• kicks-off, mid-term, final conference

• study tours, other events and seminars

• reports, e.g. sulphur directive, main road 18, combo terminals

All press releases are collected on website: www.midnordictc.net/informationandmedia/pressre-leases

Project partners have in addition published some own press releases, as part of their work within the project.

Media follow-up has been regular, and all me-dia coverage has been collected on the website: http://www.midnordictc.net/informationmedia/mediac-overage

a Transnational marketing action Plan…In order to follow through what we have stated early in the project (namely that we communicate for a purpose, to targeted groups and persons for specific reasons) we are in the process of creating a Transnational Marketing Action Plan.

The idea is that this document can be the founda-tion to future projects, new cooperation, commu-nication with stakeholders, communication with politicians etc. The aim is to filter down the very essence of east-west communications so it will be an obvious and realistic choice to consider.

The document will focus on possibilities and pos-sible cooperation rather than specific corridors and locations. The document will be completed during late August/September 2013.

main project events during 2010–2013 The Midnordic Green Transport Corridor/NECL II has during three years arranged several events.

One important event for many reasons was that the project/corridor had a joint stand at the Tran-sRussia fair in Moscow both years 2012 and 2013 with operators from the corridor and other pro-jects and stakeholders. The goal has been to pro-mote the corridor to Russian and Baltic operators, and to get important business contacts Far East. An additional positive effect, besides the goal of visiting the fair, was the cooperation between other projects and stakeholders. Several of them plan to take part in TransRussia even upcoming years, as the experience through NECL II has prov-en it to be a positive expirience.

We Need Good

Green Connections Now!

WE solve the transport if YOU have the cargo...

An international, effective, sustainable and multimodal transport connection between transport hubs in Norway, Sweden & Finland to/from Russia and Asia.

NECL II -project 2010–2013

www.midnordictc.net

Black Sea

Baltic Sea

Gulf of Finland

Gulf of Bothnia

Adriatic Sea

LigurianSea Dalmatia

Føroyar

Austria

Belarus

Belgium

Bosniaand Herzegovina

Bulgaria

Croatia

Czech Republic

Denmark

Estonia

Finland

France

Germany

Hungary

Ireland

Latvia

Liechtenstein

Lithuania

Luxembourg

Moldova

MonacoMontenegro

Netherlands

Norway

Poland

Romania

Russia

Serbia

Slovakia

Slovenia

Sweden

Switzerland

Ukraine

UnitedKingdom

Syvash

Seine

Loire

Florence

Arctic Circle

Moscow

St. Petersburg

Murmansk

Arkhangelsk

Petrozavodsk

The White Sea

SUMMARY of NECL II 2010-2013

12

• Kick-offs (Sundsvall 2010 and Trondheim Jan 2011)

• Study tour Sweden-Norway (June 2011)• Port Day in Kaskinen (Sep 2011)• Study tour Finland (Sep 2011)• Seminar east-west communications, Trond-

heim (Nov 2011), in cooperation with the Mid Nordic Committee

• International seminar of combined trans-ports (Nov 2011) Seinäjoki

• TransRussia 2012 – Moscow (Apr 2012)• Hearings sulphur regulation (June and Sep

2012)• Finnish Transport Minister Kyllönen in Port of

Kaskinen (Sep 2012)

• NECL II delegation in Petroskoi (Nov 2012)• Railway seminar in Seinäjoki (Nov 2012)• Port Day Kaskinen, (April 2013)• TransRussia 2013, Moscow (April 2013)• Parikkala seminar on Border Crossings (June

2013)• Final conference of NECL II, Sundsvall (Aug

2013)• Other smaller events and meetings

SUMMARY of NECL II 2010-2013

13

7. Create through being; Accomplish without do-ing.

8. Dance with the tides, but always be aware of where we are and who we are, so we will not be unconsciously driven by one of the polarities.

9. This is a great gift while being in embodiment: To experience the polarities and paradox. So be grateful.

10. Everything is important; nothing is important.

Capacity vs. functionality…Is it so that one could say that, in a similar way as described regarding Yin and Yang, functional-ity can’t fully exist without capacity and capaci-ty can’t be fully used without functionality? Lack of capacity can perhaps be caused by lack of effi-ciency (functionality).

Is Capacity vs. Functionality our infrastructural Yin and Yang paradox?

THE YIN AND YANG PARADOX…In Chinese history, there was a story known to all. It was about a blacksmith who was trying to sell his weapons in the marketplace. Holding a pike, he declared to the assembled crowd, “This is the sharpest pike you will find. It will pierce through any

shield.”

Then he lifted a shield and said, “This

is the sturdiest shield in the world. Nothing can pierce it.”

Someone asked him, “What if I use your pike to pierce your shield?” The blacksmith

could not answer the question.

In Chinese characters, pike and shield togeth-er means “paradox”. Thus things always come in pairs. There is neither an absolutely powerful pike, nor an absolutely powerful shield. Because of the shield, it is necessary to create the pike; like-wise, because of the pike, the shield exists.

1. Everything has an opposite.

2. Yin and Yang make a whole.

3. Embracing both polarities means peace and neutrality.

4. There is no absolute Yin or Yang. There is always Yang existing in Yin, and Yin always existing in Yang.

5. There is neither good nor bad, right nor wrong.

6. Because of the interaction between Yin and Yang, everything in the universe is always in a state of change, so be patient.

CaPaCITy vS. fuNCTIONaLITy

SUMMARY of NECL II 2010-2013

14

Work Package 3 In WP 3 we have done studies striving towards es-tablishing the Midnordic Green Transport Corridor as a fully operational alternative transport route. We have mainly focused on goods transports since we figured out that if things work out for the cargo it will probably sort out the main problems for oth-er traffic.

Already in the first NECL project bottlenecks needed to be removed was identified. In NECL II we contin-ued this work and updated the list regarding capac-ity shortages. We also made a map showing the ca-pacity shortages in a more transparent way easy to communicate to different stakeholders.

The carrying idea through WP 3 has been the need of intermodal solutions. We have pushed hard re-garding the need of combination between differ-ent transport modes in order to get efficiency. It’s also important so we can use the already existing capacity in an efficient way.

We need to understand the connection between lack of capacity vs. lack of efficiency. So we have looked into cross-border solutions or perhaps more on cross-border problems. We have emphasized the need to improve infrastructure especially the inter-faces between countries on different official levels. Looking at this problem on a more general level we have found that regardless type of infrastructure there are always problem when crossing borders. Accepting that for fact most of the efforts should first be put in border-crossing solutions and then in domestic solutions and not the other way around as it tends to be today.

Solving the cross-border issues will set the domestic map in an international context.

reports made in wP3: WP3 is rather homogeny meaning that the differ-ent parts and studies are all striving in the same direction. The studies have been done in Norway, Sweden and Finland giving a rather good picture matching the whole corridor.

3.1 ”all pieces in place”The Swedish Transport Administration made a regional economic study, with value not only to the Mid Nordic Region and the Midnordic Green Transport Corridor, but also to the entire Baltic Sea Region. The report is illustrating the effects on so-ciety and regional development by investments removing flagrant bottlenecks in the transport infrastructure. It is extremely important that the Midnordic Green Transport Corridor is anchored in its proper context. It’s an important comple-ment as well as a realistic alternative to already existing main routes today. The Midnordic Green Transport Corridor enables in many cases smart transport solutions from local, regional, national, international and global point of views. Transport modes need to change according to the actu-al transportation need. When reviewing existing national main routes the Midnordic Green Trans-port Corridor clearly contribute to a better capac-ity usage on several levels.

More information and download report: http://www.midnordictc.net/newsevents/newsarchive/newreportregionaleconomicstudyonbottlenecksandca-pacitygapsonthemidnordicgreentransportcorridor

Sundsvall

Timrå

Härnösand

Kramfors

Åre Sollefteå

Ånge

Örnsköldsvik

Vaasa

Umeå

Seinäjoki

Alavus Ähtäri

Keruu

Karleby / Kokkola

Jakobstad / Pietarsaari

Kaskö / Kaskinen

Kristinestad / Kristiinankaupunki

Jyväskylä

Pieksämäki

Heinola

Loviisa

Tampere

Varkaus

Savolinna

Parikkala

Lappenranta

Joensuu

Koupio

Lahti

Imatra

Jämsä

Mikkeli

Östersund Trondheim

Stjørdal

Verdal

Skogn

Orkanger

Meråker

Steinkjer

Kouvola

W o r l d h e r i t a g eH i g h C o a s t

n a n a b s r e k å r e M

4 1 E

4 1 E

4 E

4 E

8 E

2 1 E

3 6 E

3 6 E

5 7 E

5 7 E

8 E

8 1 v R

8 1

v R

n a n a b m

a t S n a n a b s d n a l n i f ö j S

n a n a b s d n a l n i f ö j S

n a n a b a i n t o B

- s l a d

Å n

a n

a b

Ådal lineMid Sweden line

Sjöfinlandsbanan

Meråkersbanan

Namsos

NECLProfilbild/ÅF-Infraplan

Nuijamaa

Inla

nd

sba

na

n

Inla

nd

sba

na

n

E14 Lockne - Pilgrimstad, reconstuction130 MSEK, 2006

E14 Tunnel at Årephase one70 MSEK, 2005

E 14 Matfors - NackstaRoad safety adn speedstandard. 230 MSEK

Sundsvalls harbour /Tunadal. Investments of155 MSEK, 2006

Mid Sweden line Storlien-Östersund. Rail replacements,centrl. traffic controll, ATC etc.850 MSEK, 2002

Terminal in Skogninvestements in terminal,300 MNOK, 2009

Establisment of the Trönde-lag terminal - logistc pointextensive investments

• Intermodal terminal Ålesund Flatholmen 150 milj NOK• Terminal Rotterdam 32 milj NOK• Terminal Immingham • Reconstruction 3 combi Lo-Lo/container-vessels 55 MNOK

Finnish lakes line, Seinäjoki - Jyväskylä,improvments with present axle weight200 MEURO

Road 13, Jyväskylä - St.Mickel, improvments and flyovers,21 21 MEURO

Kaskö-Seinäjoki rail replacement and inv.45 MEURO 2009 -

Road 18, Myllymäki-Multianew road construction 35 MEURO

Road 18, Seinäjoki-Tervajokirebuilding and improvments3,3 MEURO, 2005-2006

Vasa - Seinäjoki, electrifi-cation of railway.13 MEURO, ongoing invest. Finnish lakes line, Huutokoski -

Nyslott, extensive overhaul ofstrech. 35 MEURO

New rail Parikkala - and border stationParikkala - Syväoro, new track 5 km15 MEURO

Finnish lakes line, Jyväskylä -Pieksämäki, security measures18 MEURO, 2006

New railway 17 km between border stationat Parikkala - Syväoro and Elisenvaara,36 MEURO

Meråker line, partly railreplacements, 26 MNOK

Meråker line, remaining rail preplace-ment for 22,5 tonne axle weght40 MNOK, 2009

Meråker line, eletrification and cent-ralised traffic controll of meeting stations, 800 MNOK

E14 Stjördal, new bridgein Forra etc.60 MNOK, 2014-

Mid Sweden line, strechKrokom - Töva, 25 tonneaxle weight. 75 MSEK

Mid Sweden line, refurb.of overhead contact lines182 MSEK

Triangle track, Bergsåker106 milj SEK 2010-2015

Delta Terminal infrastructur, and cranes, 11 MSEK, 2006

Härnösands Harbour, RoRo-ramp14 MSEK, quay extension, 8 MSEK2003

Lievestuore

Kangasniemi

Improvments of the Mid Nordic Transport CorridorRealized Planned Proposed

Updated 2010-03-14

Kaskö harbour 2 RoRo ramps, 3 new quays, rail tracks 22 MEURO, 2006

E14-Stördal - national borderextention and improvment280 MNOK

Road 322, Skalstuev. strenghtening of found-ations. 96 MSEK, 2009

Road 72 improvm. 2 bridgesto total weight, 55 ton 2 MNOK

Road 18, Seinäjokirebuilding of north bypass12 MEURO, 2006-2009

Road 13 St. Michel - Villmanstrandbuilding of 3 and 4-lane road6 MEURO 2006-2007

Road 13 St. Mickel - Villmanstrand, overtakinglanes and mid-road barriers,60 milj MEURO 2011-2030

Road 13 Villmanstrand - Nuijamaaand Mustola-Suikinsilta, improvmentof standard. 20 MEURO

Road13 Nuijamaa border crossing.building of extra lane,4 MEURO, 2004-2005

Ånge - Sundsvall, improvedspeed profile, microinvestm.25 MSEK 2014 –

Finnish lakes line, Jyväskylä-Pieksämäki, rail replacement46 MEURO, -2015

E14, Bypass Brunflo125 MSEK, 2015-

New tunnel, GevingåsenHommelvik - Hell, 2009-2011

Triangle track Maland, electrificationof Tunadal track , investments TunadalHarbour incl. Combi terminal, etc.560 MSEK, 2009-

/Villmanstrand

St Michel

Huutokoski

/Nyslott Myllymäki Multia

Storlien

Krokom Järpen

Bräcke Bensjöbacken

Töva

Duved

Stöde

Matfors Vainikkala

Riihimäki

Tervajoki

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3.2 accessibility to the ports in härnösand,Timrå and SundsvallImproving the connections between railways and ports in Sundsvall, Timrå and Härnösand will make the Midnordic Green Transport Corridor more effi-cient with a higher degree of intermodality. Freight transportation by road to and from these ports will decrease and be transferred to the railway.

In 2011, bottlenecks, need for measures and the im-pact of the corridor were studied on a general level (report: All pieces in place, activity 3.1). The present re-port (3.2.) is done by The Swedish Transport Adminis-tration and is a continuation of that work and focus-es on land connections to the ports in Härnösand, Söråker/Timrå and Tunadal Port in Sundsvall.

More information and download report: http://www.midnordictc.net/newsevents/newsarchive/necliireportaccessibilitytotheportsinharnosandtim-raandsundsvall

3.3 E14 a part of the green freight corridorTogether with the railways along the route, the E14 is part of the Midnordic Green Transport Corri-dor from Trondheim in Norway via Östersund and Sundsvall in Sweden over to Finland. It has an im-portant function for trade and industry´s transpor-tation needs, the visiting industry and for commut-ing in the areas around Östersund and Sundsvall. It also brings together consignments at the nodes on the E45 and the E4 and major national roads.

In 2011, bottlenecks, need for measures and the impact of the corridor were studied on a general level (activity 3.1). The present report (3.3.), done by The Swedish Transport Administration, is a continuation of that work and focuses on traffic ability for freight transport on the E14.

More information and download report:

http://www.midnordictc.net/download/18.54a0ea8e13cdccff254d41/Report+NECL+II+Ports+VNL+3.3_+eng.pdf

3.4 main road 18 Main road 18 is an important nationwide road con-necting the cities of Jyväskylä, Seinäjoki and Vaasa in Finland. The study is focused on the parts of the main road between Ähtäri/Myllymäki and Multia. The 28-kilometer-long section of the road will be redirected to a new location between Ähtäri/Myl-lymäki and Multia. An improvement of the regional road 621 was also included in this plan. The length of the improved section of the road is 15 kilometers.

At its current state the main road 18 does not meet the fluency and quality requirements for a main road in Finland. The cross-section is too narrow and there are hills and bends along the road. The most significant problem is the un-built section between Ähtäri and Multia. The need to improve the section has been a regular topic since the 1980s.

More information and download report: http://www.midnordictc.net/newsevents/newsarchive/necliireportmainroad18centralfinland

3.4 The midnordic Transport Study As part of activity 3.4. the Midnordic Transport Study analyzed east-west transport routes across the corridor and compared their competitiveness in regard to other routes in Northern Europe. As a result of the study, recommendations for develop-ing actions have been drafted. The Midnordic Trans-port Study compared the competitiveness of sever-al selected international transport routes regarding transport length and speed, emission costs, and lo-gistics service level. The routes compared in Finland consisted of a number of selected routes between west-coast ports and Finnish-Russian border sta-tions. The study found that the main challenge for the Finnish west-coast ports is the small supply of liner traffic services.

The Study suggests the regions along the Midnordic Corridor should focus their development efforts on joint logistics cooperation regarding exports to and from Russia. The St. Petersburg region alone offers notable export potential for consumer goods. With regional cooperation, it is possible to create compet-itive supply chains also for SMEs. Furthermore, ex-port cooperation in machinery and chemistry sec-tors may develop rail transport to more distant des-tinations in Russia and, for example, in Kazakhstan.

More information and download report: http://www.midnordictc.net/newsevents/newsarchive/newnecliireportthemidnordictransportstudy

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3.5 Specialization of ports (in Ostrobothnia) Sea transport and ports have great meaning to the region of Ostrobothnia in Finland. There are four deep-water harbours in Ostrobothnia: Pietarsaari, Vaasa, Kaskinen and Kristiinankaupunki.

Cooperation and specialization of these ports must be regenerated as well as the sea and land connec-tions. The target should be that all goods export-ed from and imported to Ostrobothnia are trans-ported through one of Ostrobothnia´s own ports.

The main goal of the study, done by Regional Council of Ostrobothnia, was to describe the pre-sent state of the four ports in Ostrobothnia and their possibilities regarding specialization and co-operation. The study was executed by exploring lit-erature and other written material and by conduct-ing several interviews. The study also contains six different scenarios that were simulated and stud-ied with Frisbee, a freight traffic model.

More information and download report:http://www.midnordictc.net/newsevents/newsarchive/necliireportspecializationofportsinostrobothnia

3.6 railway terminal in port of kaskinen, Improvement repair of kaskinen – Seinäjoki railway and bio goods terminals along the railway lineThe renovation of Kaskinen-Seinäjoki railway track was to begin in 2011, but in early 2012 the Finnish transport agency aborted the process of this plan-ning and it was a complete and unexpected turn-around action from the agency. Immediately here-after the NECL-II project group, including stakehold-er groups within the project, had several lobying actions (e.g. several seminars, visits to Traffic min-ister Merja Kyllönen, Traffic Minister) with the pur-pose to get the repair of the railway track back in the process.

Merja Kyllönen was also invited to Kaskinen since lo-cal actors wanted to appeal for the importance of the Seinäjoki-Kaskinen railway and its renovation needs. Minister Kyllönen could not promise any ad-ditional funding at this stage to renovate the track. However as a result of this action within the project the track will be maintained in traffic as for now. The Minister recommended however extensive cooper-ation between all interested parties across region borders in order to find more concrete cargo sup-porting future actions on the track.

The agency’s work plan for the renovation is never-theless still up-to-date and can be put into opera-tion whenever the financial situation improves.

One recent news is that Forest BTL is planning a bio fuel factory close to the port of Kaskinen. The facto-ry – when operative – will increase the load factor on the railway three times and make the railway repair decision inevitable.

The report is available at:http://www.midnordictc.net/infrastructure/railwayyard-skaskinenandseinajoki

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3.7 Combiterminals

Intermodal terminal in ÅngeThe environmental studies regarding the terminal area have been part of the EU Project of NECL II.

A milestone in the development process was to meet the need of knowledge about the environ-mental consequences of a possible expansion of the area. There was a need for an environmental impact statement that provided a risk rating of the area as a whole. Such a report had also to be the basis for permit applications at local and re-gional level later on in the process.

The market for forest products is an important base for the terminal from the start. The long term goal is to, step by step, develop more com-plex services. The Municipality vision is a combo-terminal in Ånge. This requires hard work, quali-fied partners and additional funding.

Comment of current situation: The terminal development process in Ånge en-ters a new stage by the beginning of July 2013. The Municipality of Ånge launches Midnordic Lo-gistic Center in Ånge located by the great railway yard. MLC Ånge is a hub for reloading of goods at the midnordic railway crossing between two im-portant strain paths; north-south and east-west.

A 15.000.000 SEK EU-project funded by Tillväxt-verket, the County Administrative Board of Väster-norrland and Ånge Municipality ended by June 2013. The project has led to a terminal in Ånge covering 40 0000 square meters. Additional facil-ities are a terminal track of 650 meters, a 24 me-ter heavy vehicle scale and a combined measur-ing facility and terminal office.

Ånge railway yard has been upgraded to a cost of ap-prox. 75 000 000 SEK during 2011–2013 funded by the Swedish Transport Administration (Trafikverket).

More information and download report:http://www.midnordictc.net/infrastructure/goodsdeliv-erycentersandcombiterminals/combiterminalange

Copyright : Midnordic Logistic Center Ånge.

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Intermodal terminal in Östersund area – Study of technical, economic and market conditions for establishmentAims and intentionsConstruction of an intermodal terminal in Öster-sund area, Sweden, is a priority for the municipality and the region. The terminal must be able to offer the market an opportunity for transporting goods on alternative road and rail, to both efficiency and environmentally sound transportation. The estab-lishment of an intermodal terminal is often a major financial investment. It is also difficult to predict the future market potential. Therefore a public commit-ment both financially and practically is necessary. The public interest in encouraging combined trans-port is large, especially given the potential of open-ing for business development in general, but also because transports can be more environmentally friendly, when goods go on rail instead of road.

More information and download report: http://www.midnordictc.net/infrastructure/goodsdeliv-erycentersandcombiterminals/combiterminalostersund

Comment of current situation: The work for an intermodal terminal for the ben-efit of Östersund and the region has been going on for more than 10 years and has largely been fo-cused on finding a good location. Several locations have been studied and the market conditions have also been investigated, as it is not sure that poten-tial freight volumes are large enough to provide ter-minal profitability.

Report made in May 2012 mainly describes the physical, economic and technical conditions for the location of an industrial area in the north of Öster-sund. Investigations showed that the site was un-fortunately inadequate for the purpose, due to the limited space, conflicts with neighboring business-es and the lack of real development.

The focus has since then been a location south of Brunflobadet society, about 15 kilometers south of the city of Östersund. The place is strategically right, at the intersection of both railways Inland Line and Central Line and the European highways E14 and E45. Since then also less land acquisition has been made in the area. The area is now reserved in the municipality-wide master plan. Further discussions have been held with companies of their interest to establish operations o the area, but also about the

®

Nordic Logistic City Seinäjoki is a modern and green intermodal centre: In Seinäjoki the plans are to expand the area and add services to it during the next two years. The area will expand from the current 300 hectares to over 600 hectares and will be a significant logistics centre in Finland. NLC-Seinäjoki will demonstrate guidelines for green transport and set an example to all other centres built in Finland.

forecasts of future freight volumes. One essential factor to the process is a positive announcement in April 2013 that the Norwegian Nasjonale Plan 2014-25 will include the upgrading and electrification of Meråker (railway) Line. It is one of the most crucial steps in achieving a working freight corridor along the Central Line and Northern Main Line and the West. The municipality of Östersund is currently in a position to begin detailed planning and prepara-tion for the completion of the necessary infrastruc-ture around the terminal area. In a fast scenario, the terminal can be completed within 2–3 years.

3.8 a logistical Centre in SeinäjokiThe Regional council of Southern Ostrobothnia and Seinäjoki Region Business Service Center made a study regarding a new regional logistics area. Defined by earlier studies, the logistics area is located next to the current logistics area, in the Roves district. The target of the study was to de-fine the project concept further, how it is located in the area, where and what kind of operations will exist in the area. A significant addition to the current operations is the terminal for combined transportation for trains and trailers.

Operations of the area will consist of logistics and industrial companies and supporting services.

More information and download reports:

http://www.midnordictc.net/infrastructure/goodsdeliv-erycentersandcombiterminals/logisticcentreseinajoki

www.nlcseinajoki.fi

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THE CHICKEN AND THE EGG PARADOX DESCRIBES THE PROBLEM… – WHICH CAME FIRST…?

INfraSTruCTurE vS. TradE

In a slightly similar way it’s hard to determine what needs to be in place first and what comes later looking at trade vs. infrastructure.

Is infrastructure needed to ensure trade or is trade needed to ensure infrastructure?

Within Work Package 4 we have focused on trans-ports and logistics in the Midnordic Green Trans-port Corridor.

Different studies have been done in order to un-derstand the very basics regarding transports in general as well as in particular regarding the Barents Sea Region (BSR).

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The WP4 has been divided into different areas 1. Analysis of potential revenues, cargo flows

and goods volumes

2. Analysis of different costs related to different ports and its infrastructure

3. Feasibility study on renewable bio-fuels in cargo ships

4. Business Plan of shipping company/cargo liner between Sundsvall Ports Region and port of Kaskinen

5. Analysis of issues and practices related to in-termodality problems between sea and land corridors as well as cross-border problems.

This work has basically strived towards two main areas of interest. One area coping with business possibilities resulting in four separate reports, all related to the current problems and opportunities in connection to transporting people and goods in the Midnordic Green Transport Corridor. This work has been extremely important for many reasons. Since the aim is to get more business in the area leading to an increased need of transportation and by that need of increased infrastructure leading to new possibilities for new businesses.

We talk in terms of a positive development spiral.

All the results in this 1st part are finally filtered down in a business- and market plan for commer-cial liner ship traffic in the Baltic Sea, between Fin-land and Sweden. City of Kaskinen has been re-sponsible for the studies in this 1st part of WP4.

The results from the 1st part will furthermore be an important part of the Transnational Marketing Ac-tion Plan being completed in early September 2013.

The 2nd area in this Work Package was from start meant to be regarding renewable vessel-fuels.

However since the “Sulphur Regulation in the Baltic Sea Region” became an intriguing piece in the in-ternational debate regarding the expected and po-tential effects on the Northern Europe we got inter-ested.

And especially when the debate concerned Swe-den, Finland and Norway especially, with long trans-port routes to their main markets, we decided to ex-tend the study.

From where we were standing we couldn’t find any cohesive approach regarding the Sulphur direc-tive and its possible implications. We realized that we needed to look at this matter from a wider per-spective.

So the idea to our extended our study was initiat-ed sometime during 2011 and later the same year –“Scenarios for the Mid Nordic region, threats and opportunities” was borne however it would take some real hard work to get it done. The study was officially released in the beginning of 2013.

Lawmakers and public officials in Finland, Norway, Sweden and Brussels have all substantiated and embraced the report. In Sweden, the report served as a catalyst in the central administration’s prepara-tory work to prevent any negative impacts as a re-sult of the implementation of the Sulphur Directive in the Baltic Sea.

The work that has been commenced through the study has provided public and private actors with new information and with new possibilities to shape a more competitive approach regarding the negative implications.

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reports made in wP4:

4.1 Cargo flows in the midnordic green Transport CorridorThe study was focused on cargo traffic. Railway cargo traffic and road cargo traffic in Finland, Sweden and Norway was analyzed. Railway car-go traffic analysis between Finland and Russia was mainly focused on transit traffic analysis. Also cargo traffic at sea was studied.

More information and download report: http://www.midnordictc.net/newsevents/newsarchive/reportoncargoflowsonthemidnordicgreentransportcor-

ridor

4.2 Port Costs and Liner Ship Survey between Port of kaskinen and Swedish PortsMain focus in the study was to find and produce supporting data of port costs for the decision making of investors into a new cargo liner service between Port of Kaskinen in Finland and Swedish ports in Västernorrland.

More information and download report: http://www.midnordictc.net/newsevents/newsarchive/newrepor tpor tcostsandlinershipsur veybetween-portofkaskinenandswedishports

4.3 Scenarios for the mid Nordic region, threats and opportunitiesThe study shows how the future sulphur directive ni the Baltic Sea Region will affect the Mid Nordic region (Sweden, Finland and Norway). The study is based on known facts but also on analyses and estimates from academy, industry and authori-ties. The report covers three perspectives, Mari-time, Industry and Logistics. The consequences, threats, and opportunities are elaborated within the time scenarios 2020 and 2030, however start-ing in the situation 2012 and what most likely will happen in 2015.

More information and download report: http://www.midnordictc.net/newsevents/newsarchive/sulphurregulationinbalticsearegionscenariosforthemid-nordicregionthreatsandopportunities

4.4 Business PlanThe main purpose with the study has been to es-tablish a business plan for a liner ship connec-tion between the Port of Kaskinen, Finland and the Port of Sundsvall including some of the sur-

rounding regions in Sweden. Another objective was to introduce the business plan to potential investors in a new cargo liner service. Earlier, re-lated studies have been 4.1. and 4.2.

The route Kaskinen-Sundsvall has been chosen based on the information that a new logistics center will be built in Sundsvall starting in 2015. This will create better competitiveness for liner ship traffic to the Port of Sundsvall which also has TEN-T port status. This study has focused on lin-er economic factors and the result shows possi-ble positive net profit in a new cargo liner service.

More information and download report:

http://www.midnordictc.net/transportsandlogistics/businessplansshippingcompanyandport

4.5 Cross-border issuesA study regarding cross-border issues is under de-velopment. This study and the report will be com-pleted during the summer or early fall 2013.

The study is divided in two main parts:

1. Analysis of issues and practices related to in-termodality problems between sea and land corridors as well as cross-border problems.

2. Identification and description of three select-ed cargo supply chains along the NECL II cor-ridor from origin to end-user. Critical factors and cross-border barriers/problems will be analyzed in terms of commercial conditions, transport technology and logistics, customs clearance procedures, pricing, tariffs, fees and logistics information.

More information and download report: The report will be uploaded on our website under “Re-

ports” during the summer or early fall 2013.

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Much focus in today’s discussions is about increas-ing capacity by building more roads and railroads, larger ships, heavier and longer trucks, longer train set etc. However transportation is not just about capacity parse…it’s also about available capacity and how we are using it.

If you don’t know about existing capacity you can’t use it..!

Today when you book your flights, train tickets etc. this is often done on a homepage where you search on cheapest flight, fastest travel time or any other criteria that suits you. These systems have been on the market for several years and almost all personal transports are today booked in this way.

WHAT ABOUT CARGO?Today most of the big shipping lines or transport companies have their own booking systems. The million dollar question is of cause - Do you get the best price or fastest transport when you book your goods this way?

Most certainly not! Since most of these compa-nies only use their contactors for shipping and in contradistinction to personnel transport book-ing, where all available transports are present in the booking system on the web, the information regarding goods transportation is only available in their own booking systems.

Can cargo be matched in the same efficient way as it’s done when you book your flights, train tick-ets etc. via a homepage where you search on cheapest flight, fastest travel time or any other criteria that suits you?

Yes we think so, and we also think that in the near future there will be similar roles, travel agency’s for cargo, when planning cargo transports.

However cargo transports are trickier to handle today, especially if you need to combine way of transportation to get the most suitable, effective, cheapest, fastest and most environmental friend-ly transport that suits your specific transport needs. The large number of interactions need-ed today with different transport companies and other functions makes it hard to have an efficient process leading to best match and best price for the cargo owners.

The environmental regulations (e.g. Sulphur di-rective 2015) will increase the cost on transpor-tations on general basis. Higher prize on prod-ucts will eventually be a competition issue on the global market meaning that it will be more and more interesting for cargo owners to get lowest possible transport costs.

Looking at future regulations besides the Sulphur directive, e.g. EU-white book for transportation (http://ec.europa.eu/transport/themes/strategies/2011_

white_paper_en.htm), it’s just a matter of time be-fore there will be a prize on emissions.

For this obvious reason we added a function in our ICT tool so we can use different factors add-ing cost to the calculation e.g. different emissions.

ICT–ThE way TO uSE avaILaBLE CaPaCITy?

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Customer

Transport demand• Cargo type• Transportrelation• Volume• Frequens• Time• Envorinmental impact• Security• Etc.

Business conceptIT platform with:• All (connected) transporters• All servicelevels• Prices

Instant reply to customer!

Deal

Customer contact onepart by contract (fee)

Transport provider(s)make money

Business concept makes money from customers by fee

Business concept buy information from transport providers

Transport provider(s) maintain accurateinput/information Cost

Benefit

1 2

Customer

Transport demand• Cargo type• Transportrelation• Volume• Frequens• Time• Envorinmental impact• Security• Etc.

Transporters• Rail (operators)• Road (haulage contractors)• Sea (shipowners)• Air (air l ine companies)• Logistics (DHL, Schenker, Bring etc.)

Offer• Fast (expensive)• Slow (low-cost)• High capacity• Secure• Environmenatly fr iendly• Etc.

Deal

Customer has to contacteach transport providerinduvidually (cost in time

and resources)

Cost

Benefit

Each transport providerhas to make an offer

(cost in time and resources)

Transport provider(s)make money

1 2 3

So what needs to be in place for this Logistic Broker to be operational? In a similar way as travel agencies operates on the spot market looking for free capacity we believe there will be a future spot market for cargo ca-pacity.

We also believe the business idea will be similar as for instance “Pizza On-line”. Pizza companies to-day pay a fee to be a part of a concept where a customer can find them on the web and then or-der a pizza. Pizza On-line also takes a fee charging a % for each purchase

Transport companies, capacity owners will proba-bly pay a fee for being able to upload their free ca-pacity on a webserver. On this webpage the free capacity then can be spotted by cargo owners

THE LOGISTIC BROKERSWhen we were starting the ICT development we discussed how the future might look like in order to get the development starting on the right foot. One thing we did was to create a new function we later named “The Logistic Brokers”.

Our idea was that the future cargo transportation will be transformed and work the similar way as it functions for personal transportation.

The idea evolved from looking today’s travel agencies and how they work. They rarely own any infrastructure or means of transportation. They just combine already existing transportation ca-pacity someone else owns.

So, our idea for the future is built on the fact that we believe the transportation for cargo will trans-form to be similar as personal transportation.

Today’s three stage process to set up a transport

Tomorrows two stage process with the Logistic Broker business concept

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sorting out their own transport needs. The web-page can also be accessed by a Logistic Broker. The capacity owners will put the price on their ca-pacity and the Logistic Broker will probably take a % as a fee for each business transaction.

The role for a Logistic Broker will probably be di-vided into two main parts:

1. To be the information owner. Provide capaci-ty information from the spot market in a sim-ilar way as a travel agency operates. Through the website transportations can be planned and bought like buying a ticket.

2. 2nd role will be to actually sell combo travels. This means that if a customer wants a specific transportation, to a specific location the Lo-gistic Broker will put together some possible transportations.

Through combining different transport pos-sibilities, different transport modes a suitable transport, meeting the customers’ require-ments and specifications for the actual car-go, is put together and later present to the buyer as options.

We also believe that the Logistic Broker in the fu-ture will take responsibility for “All the way” trans-ports. This means that the customer (cargo own-er) will only have one contact point “The Logistic Broker” who will handle the rest.

In the future the companies actually transport-ing will probably focus on being effective regard-ing transports and the selling of transports will be handled by specific companies specialized in spot markets. We think that this market where companies not owning any infrastructure or own transportation capacity will evolve and be a com-mon way of dealing with transports.

developing the ICT-toolAlready in the first NECL project ideas of a market for goods transports was discussed. A small study was performed with real data from the company Eka Chemicals. The study indicated such a market could be beneficial for both shipping agents and suppliers (goods owners).

Due to the positive result a prototype goods por-tal (a web portal) was included in that early pro-ject.

During the first NECL project a market analyze was made in order to find out how the market was looking at such system. The results also gave information how “developed” this market area ac-tually was.

Fig.1: Result from the market analysis with 30 com-panies from diverse sectors in the Sundsvall area

The result:The result from the market study shows this busi-ness niche was undeveloped.

Short version of the ICT prototype “The Logistic Broker” Data was collected in cooperation with the com-pany Delta Terminal in the Sundsvall area regard-ing their pellets transport. This data was then used to test the prototype in real life tests. The prototype has during the project been demon-strated and discussed at several occasions with the shipping companies Sundfrakt and Delta Ter-minal in order to get some more hands-on input regarding functions and need of development.

So how is our prototype working?

• You choose if you are a supplier or a shipping agent through a log in procedure

• On the Supplier side (fig. 2) you can add as any transport request you want

• On the shipping agent side (fig. 3) the data-base of transports are available, and trans-port capacity can be added

• If you press the search button on the suppli-er side (fig. 2) the optimization module gives you the optimal transport.

• In the prototype you receive three lists of these optimal transports with respect to cost, time and emissions that you can use as deci-sion support.

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The supplier side of the portal

Fig. 2: The supplier side of the portal. In this case the supplier chooses to search for two distinct trans-ports. Down in the left corner is the location of the search button.

The shipper side of the portal

Fig. 3: The shipper side of the portal.

The future…MIUN (Mid Sweden University in Sweden) cur-rently discuss future development with a poten-tial investor, an interested supplier and an inter-ested shipping agent. The optimization model will also be further developed by a PhD student during the fall looking at risk and uncertainty as-pects, and how this can be incorporated in the optimization module.

MIUN also have students looking at the problem on how to optimize the load on a storage facili-ty. A version of this can be used to optimize the load of every load carrier connected to the over-all transport matching performed by our already existing prototype.

This will, when fully implemented, make our transport market solution “The Logistic Broker” complete and unique.

More information and download related re-ports: http://www.midnordictc.net/ictsystem

The system can be tested at: logisticbroker.miun.se

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THE SITUATION BETWEEN FINLAND AND RUSSIA (SHORT VERSION)…When we look at the present situation between Finland and Russia we can clearly see that the past, the history is affecting the current situation.

There are just a number of dedicated official border crossings which from that point of view makes the border control situation easier. Every hour of the year there are armed border patrols on both sides either patrolling or ready in stand-by mode providing defense and security.

However the rigorous border controls are affect-ing the enterprise as well as common people in-terested to travel. It’s not just a Finnish-Russian is-sue. It’s affecting everyone interested to pass the geographical area and/or to reach other markets. This means that everyone coming from east inter-ested to reach Scandinavia and/or Europe or the other way around everyone interested to go east ( e.g. Russia, China etc.) are affected. It’s an interna-tional trade barrier hindering global development.

Looking at the Sulphur directive in the BSR are and EU-white book we can clearly see that eve-rything points toward the need of new cooper-ation reaching over national borders. This means that this is no longer just a matter between two countries. It’s much larger than that.

We are hopefully looking at increasing global coop-eration meaning that this matter needs to be han-

dled on high political level (nationally and EU) in or-der to clear the surface so it’s possible to build the foundation needed for global development. – The foundation of global enterprise and communica-tion.

On-going activities Ministry of the Interior, in cooperation with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has set up a workgroup to prepare, coordinate and strengthen Finland’s preparations for increasing cooperation with the Russians especially regarding EU-Russia visa-free preparations. The working group is chaired by the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of the Interi-or (Päivi Nerg) and the Deputy Chairman of State (Pertti Torstila), Ministry of Foreign Affairs. http://www.intermin.fi/fi/kehittamishankkeet/valmis-tautuminen_eu_venaja_viisumivapauteen

On 27 March, Finland and Russia made a decision on closer border cooperation in the 13th joint meeting of the Finnish-Russian Intergovernmen-tal Commission for Economic Cooperation.

The parties decided to establish a cross-adminis-trative border traffic working group, with an aim to enhance functionality of border traffic, the border crossing stations and the relevant traffic routes. In addition, the Finnish Customs and Bor-der Guard signed an agreement about enhanced cooperation with Rosgranitsa, the Federal Agen-cy for the Development of the State Border Facil-ities of the Russian Federation.

“Russian tourism is extremely important for Finland, and last year the border between our countries was

ThE PrOjECT IS fINaLIzEd – BuT ThE rEaL wOrk haS juST BEguN…

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crossed 12 million times, which is a new record. With the help of the working group, we want to expedite development of border infrastructure and eliminate bottlenecks,” says Minister for European Affairs and Foreign Trade Alexander Stubb, who co-chaired the meeting with Deputy Prime Minister of Russia Dmitri Kozak. http://formin.finland.fi/public/default.aspx?contentid=273363&contentlan=2&culture=en-US

however…The planned closer cooperation between Fin-land and Russia, as far as we understand, only concerns the permanent border crossings. At the same time we can clearly see through border stats that the volumes reaches all time high and is predicted to continue to increase over the years. Looking at the infrastructure and its possibility to “swallow” the higher traffic volumes (both road and railroad) the only possible solution is to open

up temporary border crossings as well and state them as permanent for international traffic.

Entry into and exit from Finland is allowed via offi-cial border crossing points in accordance with the Government Decree on border crossing points and the division of border check duties at them (901/2006 and 534/2008) and Section 13 of the Border Guard Act (578/2005).

The internal borders of Schengen countries can be crossed anywhere, provided that you are not carrying goods that must be declared. There-fore you can cross the border from Finland to Sweden or Norway anywhere you wish.

LIIKENNE- JA VIESTINTÄMINISTERIÖN ARVIO SUOMEN JA VENÄJÄN VÄLISEN MAAHENKILÖLIIKENTEEN

KEHITTYMISESTÄ

10/6/13 23

Lähde: Liikenne- ja viestintäministeriön julkaisuja 5/2013

The graphic is showing estimated border volumes between Finland and Russia including a +/- 10 % variation from the baseline. The statistics lead to the conclusion that it’s possible that we are facing up to 115 % higher volumes vs. 2013 by the end of 2030. Picture: The Finnish Border Guard.

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The Finnish–Russian border is the international border between Finland and Russia roughly go-ing in north/south direction. Some 1,340 km (833 miles) long, it runs mostly through uninhabited taiga forests and sparsely populated rural areas, not following any particular natural feature or riv-er. The border forms part of the external border both of the Schengen Area and of the Europe-an Union. Border crossing is controlled and pa-trolled by the Finnish Border Guard and Border Guard Service of Russia, who also enforce border zones (0.1–3 km on the Finnish side and 7.5 km on the Russian side). Entry to a border zone requires a permit, a VISA. Major border checkpoints are found in Vaalimaa and Nuijamaa, where customs services on both respective sides inspect and levy fees on transported goods.

International border crossing points On land the permanent border crossings be-tween Finland and Russia are located in Imatra, Kuusamo, Niirala, Nuijamaa, Rajajooseppi, Salla, Vaalimaa, Vainikkala and Vartius.

Temporary border crossing points On land the temporary border crossings be-tween Finland and Russia are Haapovaara, In-ari, Karttimo, Kurvinen, Leminaho, Parikkala and Ruhovaara (until 31.3.2011).

SO WHAT CAN BE DONE? There are steps that need to be taken…!1. Open up all temporary border crossings be-

tween Finland and get them to be classified as INTERNATIONAL BORDER CROSSINGS. No or little improvement regarding conditions.

2. There are border crossings with capacity to handle both Trains and Trucks but only Clas-sified as INTERNATIONAL BORDER CROSS-INGS for one or the other (Imatra, Vainikka-la). All possible border crossings need to be opened for both transport modes (Trucks and Trains).

3. Improve capacity on all border crossings to maximal level meaning that also the current temporary border crossings are upgraded.

4. Build new infrastructure.

What we suggest is to start in small scale with open up one (1) temporary border crossing and then go on to the next. In our project we have a partner in PARIKKALA (Finland) having close cooperation with officials on the Russian side in Karelia. We visited them in November 2012 and discussed possible actions and how to proceed. The Russians where concerned by Finnish official point of view regarding opening temporary bor-der crossings…and the Finnish officials express similar distrust towards the Russians and their ca-pacity to “Man-up” the border crossings.

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Parikkala – Syväoro bor-der crossing 5th of No-vember 2012. From left: Ari Berg (Parikkala Mu-nicipality), Bo Kallstrand (Governor, County of Vasternorrnad ), Per-Ake Hultstedt (Project Man-ager NECL II), Ilkka Tian-en (Head of Parikkala Border crossing).

Meeting in Petrozavodsk, Russia, with the Head of the Republic of Karelia re-garding Parikkala – Sy-väoro border crossing (6th of November 2012)

From left: Vladislav Vohmin (Head of Lah-denpohja Region, Rus-sia), Bo Kallstrand (Gov-ernor, County of Vast-ernorrland, Sweden), Alexander Khudilainen (Head of the Republic of Karelia, Russia), Ari Berg (Chairman of the Munic-ipal Board of Parikkala, Finland), Per-Ake Hult-stedt (Project Manager Midnordic Green Trans-port Corridor, NECL II, Sweden)

Possible road bumps…Russia announces substantial expansion of border zone in Karelia… Russia is expanding its zone from the current five kilometers to about 30 kilometers from the next spring. At the same time, the movement of foreign citizens in the area will be subject to a permit, for example in some parts of the Karelian Isthmus.

A permit to enter the country will be granted by the Border Guard Service of Rus-sia, a branch of the Federal Security Service of Russia (FSB). The area northeast of Vyborg across the isthmus to the coast of Lake Ladoga would be included in the border zone, except for the city of Vyborg itself.

The reason for the change is said to be that Russia wants to expand the opera-tive range of its Border Guard Service. At the meetings with Russian border of-ficials, the Finnish authorities have been told that the permit process would be made simple for travelers. However, the information received is open to vari-ous interpretations.

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The reform will increase bureaucracy, particularly for the Finns travelling to the ceded areas of Ka-relia that were formerly in Finnish hands. Travel across the border continues to be brisk, with tour-ism mixed with those crossing to take advantage of the price-gap for items such as gasoline.

Presumably, this traffic will be hit by a more ex-tensive interpretation of the border zone.

“This is a serious impediment to tourism, as the turnaround time for permit processing is said to be one month”, notes Jarmo Eskelinen from Travel Agency Futurist, which organizes tours to Russia.

Interesting development changing the future…In 2011 we made two important study trips. In the spring 2011 we went from Sundsvall in Sweden all the way to Trondheim in Norway looking at possi-bilities and challenges along the way. This trip was crucial for our future work since it on a very prac-tical level pointed out the importance of the elec-trification of the Meråkerline as well as the need of a new goods node able to handle all transport modes in the Trondheim area from an internation-al point of view.

The same year in the fall we went eastwards on a similar study tour. We started our trip on the west coast of Finland in the Vasa and Kaskinen area in or-der to start at a possible IN or OUT point for cargo.

We went further east passing through our corridor and in Parikkala, situated on the eastern border in Finland, we had a seminar turning out to be a real game changer.

During this seminar in Parikkala we got information based on second-hand rumours that the Russians were about to build a new motorway in the area be-tween lake Ladoga and the Finnish border. Howev-er regardless how hard we later tried to get the in-formation verified by authorities in Finland, Sweden and Norway we ended up with nothing.

Since no one could confirm this rumor on official level our (perhaps rude) question to them was:

– Have you asked the Russians on official level?

We never got an answer.

So looking at all these challenges on the eastern side we sat down and tried to figure out what the smartest thing we could do. We decided in the pro-ject management group that the smartest thing we could do was to go and ask the Russians ourselves. During late fall 2011 and spring 2012 we had recur-ring meetings especially with Parikkala since we knew that they had good connections on the Rus-sian side. We figured out that it probably would take a year to prepare an official meeting with the Rus-sians. So in our planning we aimed for Novemnber 2012. Since we needed officials with us we also nar-rowed down the possible dates. During our Mid-term Conference in Vasa 2012 the decision was

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made by the Steering Committee that the strategi-cally smartest action was to go to meet officials in Karelia.

One of the reason for this decision was the fact that Mr. Khudilainen, Head of the Republic of Karelia, and Mr. Ari Berg, Chairman of the Municipal Board of Parikkala, knew each other since earlier.

The other important fact was that Mr. Khudilainen, as Head of the Republic of Karelia, reported directly to the President of the Russian Federation Mr. Vladimir Putin. We assumed that it would be the nearest we ever could come the center of decisions in Russia.

The third reason was the fact that both Parikkala and Karelia had mutual interest to develop their re-gions. They both could understand the concept of a Win-Win situation on a very hands-on level.

So the 6th of November 2012 we actually went to Russia and had a really interesting meeting…

Fun fact is that we went on the exact day we had set as the date the year earlier…spot on!

Link:http://www.midnordictc.net/newsevents/newsarchive/developmentofsyvaorocheckpointinrussiankareliaisun-derpositivewingssamemustbedoneonthefinnishsideinparikkala.5.55c9ad6413ad17ecb0b3c0.html

Some other interesting links:http://www.midnordictc.net/newsevents/newsarchive/developmentofsyvaorocheckpointinrussiankareliaisun-derpositivewingssamemustbedoneonthefinnishsideinparikkala.5.55c9ad6413ad17ecb0b3c0.html

http://www.midnordictc.net/newsevents/newsarchive/russiaupgradesbordersandfacescriticism.5.4dd505cd13a

38e659e6107e.html

http://www.midnordictc.net/newsevents/newsarchive/petrozavodskandfinlandtobeconnectedbyrail.5.4dd505cd13a38e659e61057.html

http://www.midnordictc.net/newsevents/newsarchive/shoppingluresrussianstofinland.5.4dd505cd13a38e659e6de9.html

http://www.midnordictc.net/newsevents/newsarchive/alexanderkhudilainensyvaorocheckpointwillexpandbor-dersofcooperationwithfinland.5.6bd69b67137b004c9

9b80008673.html

http://gov.karelia.ru/News/2012/08/0813_07_e.html

http://www.gov.karelia.ru/gov/News/2013/07/0718_20_f.html

Link to our animated film: http://www.midnordictc.net/misc/animation.4.6bd69b67137b004c99b80008585.html

The hand on result from the meeting in November 2012 was that Mr. Khudilainen could verify that they actually were going to build the motorway between Ladoga and the Finnish border. He also could veri-fy that the Russians were aiming to improve the in-frastructure towards the Finnish border. From their

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point of view the border between Parikkala and Sy-väoro could be open already 2014 however the Rus-sians explained their concern about Finnish official efforts to do their part of the job on the Finnish side.

Another hands-on result was that we got first- hand information regarding Russian efforts re-garding the so called “North East Passage”. This gave us valuable information to our infrastructure map regarding Russian main transport efforts.

Lesson learned is easy: If you want to know some-thing just go and ask.

The next trip to this particular area in Russia was in early June this year. We had a two day event in Parik-kala, Finland. Day one we had a road trip to Russia. The main plan was to travel over the border cross-ing between Parikkala – Syväoro. Everyone besides me was allowed to pass the border crossing. I was not allowed to pass since I wasn’t Finnish or Russian.

The interesting implication of being denied, besides the fact that I had to use another crossing point, was the larger perspective. Looking at this matter from an international point of view the Finns and Rus-sians have created a VIP-queue giving them advan-tages especially when it comes to goods transports. All other nations need to use international border crossings ending up in sometimes endless queues. The Finns and the Russians however can use all bor-der crossings. This situation is perhaps something needed to be evaluated from an EU perspective re-

garding free competition and/or competition on the same ground rules.

Back to the road trip…So I had to take a detour and pass the border in Wärtsila instead. It didn’t matter from that point of view since I had two interesting and entertain-ing comrades with me. Mr. Taavetti Tuunanen, a Finnish business man experienced doing busi-ness with the Russians for many years, and Mr. An-drei Suni, a Russian working as an interpreter in Finland. Both experienced regarding border pro-cedures so there were no worries whatsoever.

The main result from the road trip was that we ac-tually went and looked at the new motorway we two years earlier had heard rumors about.

Lesson learned is easy: If you want to know something just go and look for yourselves.

Link:http://www.midnordictc.net/newsevents/newsarchive/importantinformationfromrussiankareliaaboutongo-ingroadprojectstheinternationalizationofparikkalasy-vaorobordercrossingpointstillunderdiscussion.5.5d1af-be213e840dd5eea65.html

The 2nd day of the two day event in Parikkala was a seminar regarding border matters. The interest-ing part here was the deviating way of looking at your place in the bigger picture. Among the speakers we had leaders from the border guards and the customs from Finland presenting their point of views.

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The border guard’s point of view regarding open-ing temporary border crossings as official border crossings was that they could open them pretty much the next day if they got the order to do so.

The Customs had a total different point of view. They described that they pretty much were low on resources and had order to cut down leading to a situation where they had to focus on the ex-isting border crossings. For them it was clearly a matter of lack of resources.

Looking at this from another perspective…One implication from such argument is that they, the Customs, actually are a hindrance for econom-ic development not only in Finland but for the whole EU and especially the Nordic countries.

However, IF the Customs get recourses needed, they will contribute to economic development instead. The main question everyone should ask themselves is: Are you part of the problem or part of the solution?

On top of this…We have visited the TransRussia fair three years in a row. Year one we were scouting just to learn what it all was about. The 2nd and 3rd year we have had a stand of our own promotion East-West con-nections.

Link: http://www.midnordictc.net/newsevents/newsarchive/transrussia2013moreoperatorsfromthecorridorpromot-edtheirservices.5.54a0ea8e13cdccff2541cd7.html

So how did things go on the Eastside…?• Decision regarding border increased cooper-

ation between Finland and Russia

• New motorway between Ladoga and Finnish border under construction

• The Russians are planning to open the border between Parikkala and Syväoro

• New four lane motorway from Parikkala to Russia

Links:http://www.midnordictc.net/newsevents/newsarchive/developmentofsyvaorocheckpointinrussiankareliaisun-derpositivewingssamemustbedoneonthefinnishsideinparikkala.5.55c9ad6413ad17ecb0b3c0.html

http://www.midnordictc.net/newsevents/newsarchive/importantinformationfromrussiankareliaaboutongo-ingroadprojectstheinternationalizationofparikkalasy-vaorobordercrossingpointstillunderdiscussion.5.5d1af-be213e840dd5eea65.html

http://formin.finland.fi/public/default.aspx?contentid=273363&contentlan=2&culture=en-US

http://www.midnordictc.net/newsevents/newsarchive/investorstobuildroadinkarelia

http://yle.fi/uutiset/investors_to_build_road_in_kare-

lia/6703300

So how did things go on westside…?• New business cooperation in Parikkala –

Saimaa–Ladoga Logistic Centre

• New business cooperation in Seinäjoki – Nor-dic Logistic City Seinäjoki

• New combo terminal in Sundsvall in motion. Decision taken!

• New combo terminal in Ånge – Midnordic Logistic Center

• New combo terminal in Trondheim in motion.

• Last but not least. Decision to electrify the Meråkerline

Links:http://www.midnordictc.net/newsevents/newsarchive/39billionstomerakerlineandtronderline.5.54a0ea8e13cdccff25411be.html

http://www.midnordictc.net/newsevents/newsarchive/swedishinfrastructureministerwouldpromoteaseam-lesstransportmarket.5.54a0ea8e13cdccff2541048.html

http://www.midnordictc.net/newsevents/newsarchive/newnecliireportthemidnordictransportstudy.5.358a104d13f39b5000523a.html

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http://www.midnordictc.net/newsevents/newsarchive/finlandandrussiaagreeduponcloserbordercooperation.5.54a0ea8e13cdccff2541101.html

http://www.midnordictc.net/newsevents/newsarchive/anewporttotrondheimorkanger.5.54a0ea8e13cdccff254bf5.html

what about the future…?Things are moving quite rapidly in many areas and that is good. Much more things are in mo-tion meaning that they will happen in the near fu-ture. Other things will evolve as a result of things already completed or going to be completed in the near future.

We have been visiting Russia several times over the years and we can see positive changes both in Russia as well as in Finland, Sweden and Nor-way. We have from the projects side put a rath-er heavy pressure on many levels especially in Finland and Norway in order to get things mov-ing. Regarding the border issues between Finland and Russia they are slowly moving in a positive direction. However in order to ensure the devel-opment the pressure needs to be kept high also in the future. In Norway the Parliament approved the National Transport Plan (NTP) leading to the fact that they also approved the electrification of the Meråkerline,

The project is closing in September this year and there are no decisions made to continue at this stage. We have been talking about it howev-er nothing concrete has surfaced so far. In Au-gust 21–22 we are having our final conference in Sweden (Sundsvall) and we have decided to pro-cess the matter (about a new project) on a more hands-on level in order to see if we can filter out new project opportunities.

We have pretty much decided to have a new pro-ject name if we start a new project however noth-ing is decided yet at any official level so this is very much still an open question.

However, IF we start a new project, from where I’m standing, we should stop all endless talks about what we want to do and instead just do it...! Focus on things that actually make a differ-ence on a hands-on level and make them happen.

IF we get a new project running we should of cause have a closer cooperation with Russia. From my point of view a natural step in the east-west cooperation.

New road from Syväoro to Parikkala.

New motorway in Lahdenpohja.

SUMMARY of NECL II 2010-2013

35Black Sea

Baltic Sea

Gulf of Finland

Gulf of Bothnia

Adriatic Sea

LigurianSea Dalmatia

Føroyar

Austria

Belarus

Belgium

Bosniaand Herzegovina

Bulgaria

Croatia

Czech Republic

Denmark

Estonia

Finland

France

Germany

Hungary

Ireland

Latvia

Liechtenstein

Lithuania

Luxembourg

Moldova

MonacoMontenegro

Netherlands

Norway

Poland

Romania

Russia

Serbia

Slovakia

Slovenia

Sweden

Switzerland

Ukraine

UnitedKingdom

Syvash

Seine

Loire

Florence

Arctic Circle

Moscow

St. Petersburg

Murmansk

Arkhangelsk

Petrozavodsk

The White Sea

www.midnordictc.net

SECA – Sulphur Emission Control Areas

RELATED ISSUES EFFECTING THE CORRIDORSide orders making headlines…!As it later turned out one of our studies became im-portant, a real blockbuster. From start the idea was just to look at renewable fuels “A feasibility study on renewable bio-fuels in cargo ships”, however, since the debate regarding the sulphur regulation in Bal-tic Sea Region was rising and became more and more in the public focus we realized that we need-ed to look at this matter from a wider perspective.

So the idea to extended our study was borne some-time during 2011 –“Scenarios for the Mid Nordic re-gion, threats and opportunities”. However, it would take some real hard work to get it done.

In agreement with the Municipality of Sundsvall we decided that this was an important study and after some more analyzes we decided in agreement dur-ing 2012 that now was the time to get things going.

So we made this study (within WP4.3.) on how the future sulphur directive within the Baltic Sea Region might affect the Midnordic Region (Sweden, Fin-land and Norway). The study was based on known facts but also on analyses and estimates from acad-emy, industry, authorities, consultants, and not to forget people from the project. The report covered three perspectives, Maritime, Industry and Logis-tics. The consequences, threats, and opportunities were elaborated within the time scenarios 2020 and 2030, but starting in the situation 2012 and what most likely will happen in year 2015 when the sul-phur directive get into force.

The interesting development after the report was released was the real hype it created. Suddenly we were asked to present the report in different forums and meetings. The Nordic Council asked us to come to Stockholm an present the essence of our find-ings. As a direct result of this meeting the matter was discussed on higher political level and later the Swedish parliament gave the Swedish government instructions to look further into this matter.

Furthermore the report has been used as referral documentation in at least two official studies re-garding the possible impact of the directive.

Department of Traffic Analysis in Swedenhttp://www.trafa.se/PageDocuments/Rapport_2013_7_Konsekvenserna_av_skaerpta_krav_foer_svavelhalten_i_marint_braensle_-delredovisning.pdf

The University of Gothenburghttps://gupea.ub.gu.se/bitstream/2077/33230/1/gu-pea_2077_33230_1.pdf

And we were asked to write an article for the Bal-tic Transport Journal. Suddenly we stood on the international arena with our study. At this mo-ment we don’t have a clue what will happen but we feel nevertheless that we have done our part and now it’s for different decision makers to use the information wisely and take decisions neces-sary for the future.

The actual report and summary can be downloaded on our webpage: http://www.midnordictc.net/newsevents/news-archive/sulphurregulation-inbalticsearegionscenari-osforthemidnordicregion-threatsandopportunities

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How are we handling the change?Baltic Transport journal | 3/2013 | http://www.baltic-press.com//btj53/_pdf/btj_53_final.pdf

When the consequences hit the transport sector via adaptation of the new regula-tions (e.g. new fuels, ship technology, in-frastructure, and fuel supply chains) there is a major risk that they will back-fire hav-ing a huge impact on the domestic indus-tries’ possibilities to be competitive on a global market. This can lead to companies closing down production plants or mov-ing to countries from where they can still be internationally competitive.

The evil root to the current situation is that on a na-tional government level the issue has been handled way too late. Since no one really expected this deci-sion to be ratified by the EU and later by Member States, nothing has happened for many years. When it did happen no one understood the impact and treated it as a “one case issue”… as if it was all about changing vessel fuel when, in fact, the impact of the decision was the real problem. A problem possibly creating not only ripples at sea but ocean waves.

The studyThe Midnordic Green Transport Corridor project (NECL II) conducted a study regarding the impact of the sulphur directive – IMO agreement (MARPOL Annex VI) regarding SOx emissions in the Baltic Sea, and its possible effects on the Midnordic regions in Sweden, Finland and Norway.

We have looked at the EU White Book on transport as well as other studies, trying to figure out what the future might hold. We do not claim in any way to be the owner of the truth. We have simply tried to de-scribe in a pedagogical way what it’s all about, how it might affect individuals (people), companies and different nations. We have set out these possible de-velopments´ in some scenarios to further exemplify our theories about the possible future.

The mentioned study is based on known facts, oth-er reports as well as on our analyses and predictions. The document covers three main perspectives: maritime, industry and logistics, with the perspec-tive starting in 2012. It describes possible scenari-

os for years 2020 and 2030 and touches upon the most likely prospects for the near future (2015 on-wards).

So what will happen and what needs to be done?The IMO agreement regarding Sox emissions will come into force in 2015. That’s no longer a matter of debate. What, on the other hand, needs to be tack-led is what actions are necessary, what will and can be done and by whom… and when.

The indisputable conclusion is that the agreement and its impact need to be transferred from being a politically environmental issue into a transport poli-cy issue on both national and EU levels.

The possibilities and consequences need to be transferred and become an issue for the Ministry of Enterprise, Energy and Communications to handle. The governments ought to take the lead and give long-term domestic instructions for this whole new game, longstanding guidelines are also required from the EU.

The industry, infrastructure owners, fuel distribu-tors, truck owners, transport companies, ports, rail-way companies, goods owners, markets, regular people, municipalities, regions and everyone else will be affected in different ways. They all need to get directions and rules. The directive will impact so-ciety on many levels and the decision makers need to provide essential information in order to enable risk-taking and making indispensable investments.

A very hands-on necessity for everyone is the defini-tion of new fuel interfaces. This needed to be decid-ed yesterday by the EU, meaning that we are already behind schedule. All interfaces in order to refuel, us-ing new fuels both overland and at sea, should be decided ASAP on an EU level. This is critical since otherwise we might end up with an amount of dif-ferent domestically developed interfaces not com-patible globally. It might seem like a small issue but it will have a major impact on the possibility to op-erate worldwide.

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What furthermore needs to be done on a political level is to implement mitigating measures for elim-inating the negative consequences and stimulate the necessary changes. These measures must be co-ordinated between the BSR states in order to avoid transferring problems between countries.

There is a need for active support to industry sectors most affected by the directive, i.e. the forest, chem-ical and steel industries, keeping in mind that Nor-way, Finland and Sweden are countries where

important domestic companies have long trans-port routes to their main markets. These industries are already today exposed to harsh competition from other countries and the IMO agreement will increase the transport costs on a general basis, re-gardless of what happens.

There is a need for both investment grants and inno-vation support as well as other measures, like low-er fairway charges, investment grants for LNG in-frastructure, transport subsidies to ports, e.g. in the Bothnian Sea and Gulf of Bothnia, increased fund-ing for R&D and innovation, etc. Without active sup-port the alternatives for some industries might be to close down or invest somewhere else, which would be a domestic worst case scenario in many ways.

what will possibly happen?The major problem right now is that things aren’t happening fast enough. The hands-on actions nec-essary in order to solve the problems ahead are in some cases totally absent. The governments are hesitating, while everyone is on the clock and the clock is ticking. Companies don’t dare to undertake the required investments since they don’t have as-surances for the future from governments. On do-mestic levels there are ongoing discussions regard-

ing whose responsibility it is to implement the in-vestments needed.

Who is responsible for the infrastructure, who is re-sponsible for the fuel supply, what fuel are we offer-ing in the years to come, who is responsible for re-cycling the waste water from the scrubbers? Lots of questions but few concrete answers!

So what will probably happen is that very few will make large investments in the years to come. With-out any assurances no one will risk placing a bet on the wrong horse. The larger part of all vessels will probably just switch to marine diesel with higher transport costs as a result. The proof pointing to-wards this scenario is the low number of orders for remodeling existing vessels or orders for new ships.

This leads to the conclusion that marine diesel will be the short team solution for many. Why? It takes time to build or rebuild ships and the shipyard ca-pacity isn’t endless. Looking at timeframes it’s not possible to have enough new vessels using new techniques in place by 2015. This will lead to an in-creased worldwide demand for diesel and probably higher fuel costs and higher freight costs not only at sea but also regarding land-based transports.

So without any active arrangements we will all even-tually adapt to the new situation. However, things might not change the way we want or the way we anticipated. The changes will most likely cause side effects and/or collateral damage.

Generally, it is not the change in itself causing prob-lems; it is how we handle the change that causes problems.

Per-Åke Hultstedt

SUMMARY of NECL II 2010-2013

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FINALLY MERÅKER LINE (NORWAY-SWEDEN) WILL BE ELECTRIFIED

An electrification of the Norwegian Meråker rail-way line — which in Sweden continues as Mitt-banan — has been on the agenda for many years, but funding has not been undertaken. The Mid-nordic region has demanded that the money needed must be put in the coming Norwegian National transport plan for the period 2013-2024.

Linking the Swedish and Norwegian railway net-work together through electrification of the Meråker Line has been on the Court list for years, but has so far floundered due to a lack of commit-ments from the Norwegian side.

The electrification between Storlien in Sweden and Trondheim in Norway enables higher speed limits and lower impact on the environment. It is a link of great importance for the Midnordic re-gion. Iron-, timber- and energy transports from the ports in Norway to the ports in Sweden and further on to Finland and Russia will be affected. Calculations shows that freight transports will rise from 400 000 to 1.3 million tonnes in the year 2020. At the same time, public transport will in-crease to over 3 million passengers.

A proposal from the Norwegian Government was made in April 2013, and later the Norwegian Par-liament voted on its National Transport Plan in June 2013. Electrification of the Meråker Line has now been decided for realization in the National Transport plan (NTP).

The Norwegian government invests NOK 3,9 bil-lion in the project which will be prioritized dur-ing 2014–2022.

source: http://www.bothniangreen.se/category/news/

ImPOrTaNT dEvELOPmENT

SUMMARY of NECL II 2010-2013

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PORT OF TRONDHEIMIn the outer part of the Trondheim fiord there are 4 ports: Orkanger, Trondheim, Muruvik and Stjørdal. Inside the fiord, there are, among other places, ports in Skogn and Verdal.

Today’s logistics hub in Trondheim has a rail freight terminal, a container port and 3 of the large grou-page agents are based here. 50% of the freight to and from Trondheim passes through this hub. The terminal will soon have reached the limit of its ca-pacity and there are small possibilities for devel-opment since the town has overflowed into the port area. If growth continues, the limit will have been reached by 2020. Work is now going on to find a new location for a terminal with good in-frastructure that can handle all transport modes. There is no designated national port between Bergen and Tromsö today. The Port of Trondheim is working to be a designated port.

A good infrastructure base would benefit the Port of Trondheim and give it competitive advantag-es, allowing it in the long term to grow into an even more important and stronger export/im-port port, which is estimated to have a positive impact on development in the entire region.

Concerning route length, the Midnordic route via Trondheim to St. Petersburg is the shortest in maritime-land transport from New York. From Shanghai, the differences in transport routes be-tween these compared routes are small. As well as this, in terms of transport times, the Midnordic route could, at its best, be quicker than the Baltic Sea routes, even though the impact of cargo han-dling both at Swedish and Finnish ports would

have to be taken into account. However, in prac-tice, the major challenge for the Midnordic route is the lack of a regular liner traffic connection be-tween the ports of Trondheim and North Amer-ican destinations. Another challenge is the thin transport flows between Trondheim and central Sweden.

More information: http://trondheimhavn.no/

Image: from the re-port ”Konseptval-gutredning (KVU) for nytt logistikk-

nutepunkt i Trond-heimsregionen”.

Copyright: Midnor-dic Logistic Center

Ånge.

Copyright: Port of Trondheim.

SUMMARY of NECL II 2010-2013

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LOGISTICS TrondheimThere is a need for a new and modern freight termi-nal in the Trondheim area and the conceptassess-ment made by the Norwegian National Rail Ad-ministration (Jernbaneverket, JBV) shows that-both options in the south and east of Trondheim are still relevant. JBV recommends that the con-cept of “combined south” stands as a basis for fur-ther work with “logistikknutepunkt” in Trondheim. By this recommendation JBV wants to contribute competitiveness for business and also take into ac-count environmental issues.

The report “Hovedrapport: Konseptvalgutredning (KVU) for nytt logistikknutepunkt i Trondheimsre-gionen” is also an important input to the next Na-tional Transport Plan 2014-2023.

More information, in Norwegian: http://www.jern-baneverket.no/no/Prosjekter/Utredninger/Godstermina-ler/Terminal-i-Trondheimsregionen/Anbefaler-delt-god-slosning-sor-for-Trondheim/

LOGISTICS Vaasa regionvaasa airport logistics center vaLC (a)• Vaasa Region accounts for the second largest

amount of air cargo in Finland

• New air cargo terminal area under construc-tion 2011–2012

• Vaasa Airport, 300 000 passengers, 5th larg-est in Finland

• Frequent connections to Helsinki, Stock-holm, Riga and Umeå

Logistics center for Land Traffic (B)Located right next to Vaasa airport, railroad and the conjunction of E8 and E12 main roads, Vaasa region logistics center will offer business sites for state of the art logistics. Vaasa harbour is locat-ed only 10 km away, which makes the location ideal for combining different modes of transport. Furthermore, the area offers logical settings for large scale logistical solutions, such as distribu-tion centers or hubs.

Port of vaasa (C)• Shortest seaway between Finland and Sweden

• Year-round daily traffic to Umeå

• New mobile crane (104 t) in 2010, investment plan for a 200 t crane in 2011

• Focus on serving heavy industry and projects

• Ongoing investments will further improve flex-ible and efficient cargo handling.

(source above: www.vasek.fi )

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INNOROAD PARK JyväskyläInnoroad Park in Jyväskylä aims to be an interna-tional cluster of road transport and vehicle com-panies and supporting companies, combining business, academic research and training. The business park provides companies with an eco-logically sustainable infrastructure, premises and business environment. Particularly to companies in the road transport and vehicle industry, the park offers a competitive location with excellent traffic connections.

Focusing operations on a clearly defined area creates new, innovative services and products, as well as co-operation between various players in the industry. In constructing the area due at-tention is paid to environmental concerns related to road traffic and to opportunities for reducing emissions. Innoroad Park is a part of the Innoro-ad network which develops innovations and ex-pertise in the road transport and vehicle industry. (source above: www.innoroad.fi )

SAIMAA-LADOGA LOGISTIC CENTRESaima - Ladoga Logistic Centre in Parikkala is cur-rently under development.

The business cluster has real potential to be an important player on the international arena espe-cially looking at the Nordic and Russian market.

The business cluster has capacity to handle both road and railway transports between Finland and Russia however it would require that the missing railroad link between both countries is restored.

From an international point of view the business cluster, once it’s operational, will contribute sub-stantially to the cross border development and opportunities for various players e.g. road trans-ports and transport companies, supporting com-panies, combined business, academic research and training, etc.

Once the border between Parikkala and Syväoro is opened and rated as an INTERNATIONAL BOR-DER CROSSING the route will contribute substan-tially to international trade and enterprise.

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PROJECT MANAGEMENT1. The project was realized as a Development

Project meaning that normal project steps, decisions, decision points, milestones organ-ization etc. was included.

2. Each activity was considered as a subproject and the WP project as an umbrella function.

3. IP responsible for implementing was expect-ed to have recourses in place (e.g. Sub Pro-ject Manager) and develop a project plan for each activity.

4. Coordination and decisions during Project Meetings.

Organization matrix

resources • Each partner in the project defined as well as

deployed their recourses in the project con-nected to each activity.

• The resource was expected to have the knowledge needed for their position as well as a positive attitude to the project in total.

• The resource needed to have time enough to invest in the project. This means NOT being divided or responsible for multiple projects or different kind of time-consuming work so it affects their general commitment to this project.

Steering Committee Project Manager NECL II reported to the Steering Committee.

The Steering Committee was decided to be top-level recourse with the authority from their own organization to take strategic decisions regarding the project. Organization chart attached.

Associated members were all WP Leaders as well as one (not explicit defined) person from LP at-tending from time to time. Associated members were mainly a knowledgebase and have no vote in the Steering Committee.

Steering Committee had meetings every six months attached to reporting periods to the EU. Additional need of meetings was evaluated due to the urgency of decision vs. timeframes.

maNagINg a PrOjECT rEquIrES a BaSIC OrgaNIzaTION…

Finance Manager Communications Manager

Project Manager

NECL II

Project Manager WP

Subproject Manager

Steering Committee

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by Per-Åke Hultstedt

We can’t fight the future, resistance is futile. Things will change, new discoveries, new technique, new innovations, and new cooperation. This will hap-pen whether we want it, accept it or not.

“Generally, it is not the change in itself causing prob-lems; it is how we handle the change that causes problems” [Per-Åke Hultstedt]

Following that thought we need to adapt and move on. It’s the only way. It’s the basic rule of survival. So through history humanity, societies have been in a constant mode of change in order to survive. The success factor has been and will al-ways be the ability adapt to new conditions and new environments.

Filtering it down to last row…– Either you adapt or you are going down. Life it’s that simple and that cruel… at the same time.

Is there a need of new projects…?To be able to answer that we first need to answer the following five questions…

• Do we accept the fact that we need to contin-ue to be in a constant mode of change?

• Do we accept that things around us will con-tinue to change regardless what we do?

• Do we want to some extension be able to in-fluence the future?

• Do we accept the fact that we can’t solve things alone?

• Do we accept that the success factor is to co-operate with others?

These five questions indicate the level of survival instincts. Do we want to be a part of the future or do we just accept things as they are…?

There is neither right nor wrong…There is no way of saying what everyone should or shouldn’t do. It all depends of the situation and level of survival instincts. The only thing that is for sure is that the world around us is a constant mode of change.

If we however want to be a part of the change we need to look at our own future.

In the project we have stated that all things need to be evalu-ated on four different levels.

• Locally

• Regionally

• Nationally

• Internationally

If the suggested change doesn’t apply and get a YES on all levels it really should be questioned in its very basic foundation. This goes pretty much for all development with one exception and that’s security and safety. When it comes to save human life’s the matter has a fast track of its own…

The bigger picture…In what ways do we want to develop our current situation?

There are some simple questions you all can ask when it comes to need of development:

• What is the problem?

• What is the current situation?

• What can be done about it?

• Who will be affected?

• Who do we need to cooperate with?

• When do we need it to be done?

The right way, from our point of view, is to start with the larger picture and break it down to small-er parts. It’s like building a house. You need to start with making drawings of the whole building before you start to build in order to ensure that everything fits and everything is meeting expect-ed standard. Doing things the other way around you’ll never be able to ensure the final result.

This can somewhat also be applied looking at the future need of development. Important is to start in the right end with the larger picture and then break it down to smaller areas of development and then to projects…all fitting the bigger pic-ture.

TO adaPT aNd mOvE ON…

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44

all this said…I want to thank all of you partners in the project.

I also want to thank everyone contributing and/or supporting us in the project.

Without the Steering Committee, and their trust and support, our work would have been a “Mis-sion Impossible”. So a big thanks to you all!

And I want especially thank you all managers in the project. You are the best and we would nev-er have accomplished the things we have accom-plished without you.

however…Now the real work starts and that is to secure the future. We need to secure the things we have start-ed so they will be completed the way we want…and we need to start planning for new projects.

Heard about the Wait & See Tribe?

No one has, they got extinct…!

Yours Sincerely…

Per-Åke Hultstedt (Project Manager NECL II)

SUMMARY of NECL II 2010-2013

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SUMMARY of NECL II 2010-2013

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Black Sea

Baltic Sea

Gulf of Finland

Gulf of Bothnia

Adriatic Sea

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Belgium

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Czech Republic

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FROM IDEA TO EXECUTION

SUMMARY of NECL II 2010-2013

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THIS IS THE FINAL REPORT OF NECL II -PROJECT North East Cargo Link II -project was part-fi-nanced from Baltic Sea Region Programme 2007–2013 and active during 2010–13.

The project aimed to develop and promote the east-west Midnordic Green Transport Corridor as an alternative, cost-effective transport route.

22 partners from Sweden, Finland and Norway took part in the project and delivered their own studies and activities in the project.

This final report has been made by Project Man-ager Per-Åke Hultstedt, assisted by all WP-leaders in the project, and all project partners. We thank everyone for their contribution.

More information and all reports are available on:

www.midnordictc.net

Part-financed by the European Union (European Regional Development Fund and European Neighbourhood and Partnership Instrument)

NORTH EAST CARGO LINK II PROJECT IN A NUTSHELLDevelopment project in Baltic Sea Region Programme 2007–2013. Duration: 2010–2013Budget: approx. 2,7 M€. 22 partners from all Midnordic regions, Sweden, Finland and Norway.

The objective of NECL II project is to implement the (earlier made) Strategy through…

• pre-investment studies for investments• development of transport solutions and a • continued development of a logistic ICT solution

(Portal).

The activities proposed are focusing on… • improvement of roads• improvement of railways• intermodal solutions • development of an ICT system for optimization of

goods transport in the corridor and • the project will contribute to a sustainable, envi-

ronmentally friendly Midnordic east-west “Green corridor”.

The project involves 22 partners from Finland, Sweden and Norway and many associated support-partners. The project has also a strong political support from the national transport agencies in Norway, Sweden and Finland as well as the Nordic Council of Ministers and North East Cargo Link Alliance.

Contact information: Leadpartner County Administrative Board of Västernorrland, Pumpbacksgatan 19, SE - 871 86 Härnosand, Swedenwww.lansstyrelsen.se/vasternorrland/En/