Informing Greece logistics gateway strategy

Definition of a strategy to exploit the potential of Greece as a gateway for logistics flows to and from Central

The objective of this study is to support the Government of Greece in developing a Logistics Gateway Strategy and the related Implementation Plan to  consolidate the role of Greece as maritime transhipment hub serving the international containerised traffic within the Mediterranean Sea and to pursue a transition from transhipment hub to a regional logistics gateway.

The study approach is to assess and contextualize the opportunity to better position Greece’s logistics sector in order for Greece to become a more capable, more competitive and more attractive gateway linking Central Europe with international and intercontinental markets.

To support the positioning of Greece, especially the port of Piraeus and Thessaloniki, the analysis develops the following steps:

• Quantitative mapping of the Central European Hinterland trades with a focus on south-east Asia (China) in order to understand the amount of freight traffic and the routes followed. This includes the intercontinental railway route across Asia between Europe and China.
• Operational mapping of the freight trades by involving relevant stakeholders (freight forwarders, intermodal operators, big retailers, etc.) mainlybased in Central Europe.

The analysis provides a review of:

• maritime ports in Greece (Thessaloníki and Piraeus) and in Europe (Hamburg, Gdansk, Rotterdam, etc.), serving the Central European Market,
• freight corridors serving the Central European Market: the Pan European Corridor X and the Orient/East-Med TEN-T Corridor.

In this study, TRT lead an international consortium of companies based in Greece (OPTILOG) and Austria (MC Mobility Consultants)  to better cover the geographical scope of the study and with the partnership of MDST Transmodal as transport modeler expert in the container cargo shipping.