International transport corridors

Module 2. IATA TRANSPORT GEOGRAPHY

Lecture 2.1

International transport corridors

1. Concept of international transport corridors.

2. European system of international transport corridors.

3. Eurasian railway transport corridors.

4. Transport Corridor Europe-Caucasus-Asia.

A group of UN experts (Inland Transport Committee) defined an international transport corridor as “a part of national or international transport system which supports significant freight and passenger movements between specific geographical regions, contains all the movable fleet and fixed facilities of the transport modes employed on the given route, and a set of technological, organizational and legal conditions for performing the transportation”.

Thus, transport modes are the interchangeable elements of a transport corridor if required and can be subject to technical, economic or legal change of transportation conditions as a result of technological scientific progress or other.

Such an understanding of the concept of transport corridor in the study of the specified transportation route enables a systemic research representation of all transport modes utilized in transportation on the given route notwithstanding their geographical area of activity (land, waterway, air and specialized transport). Transport mainlines of some transport modes included into a transport corridor are sometimes located far apart (for example, airways and waterways).

Research of international transport corridors supports assessment of investments feasibility by way of comparing them with the expenditures for creating the conditions of complete utilization of the carrying capacity for other transport modes.

Investments into development of international transport corridors are connected with national and international transportation demand in the region under study. Depending on the transportation demand, the spread of investment capital between the investors arises. This work corresponds to the pre-project phase in transport corridors research.

Transport corridors research implies the investigation of possible efficiency promotion for transportation operations within the corridor and benefiting from the natural transport potential of the country (gulfs, cabotage, internal waterways, etc.) and cheap but efficient transport modes. During transport corridor research either the competing transport modes en-route are identified, or the dominating transport modes in the given corridor where their technical performance serves the needs of the population are specified. The dependence of the tariff level and tax level and their trends for variation on the change of transport mode or the freight transportation route is considered. In solving the aforementioned complicated problems all research methods are involved, including various mathematical models and their systems, human intuition, experts’ opinion, etc. Therefore, research of transport corridors is subject to systems analysis.

The ten Pan-European transport corridors are a perfect illustration of modern transport systems development combining the transit potential of European countries, handling the generated transportation flows and promoting international technological, operational and economic cooperation within the given transportation network. They were defined at the second Pan-European transport Conference in Crete, March 1994, as routes in Central and Eastern Europe that required major investment over the next ten to fifteen years. Additions were made at the third conference in Helsinki in 1997. Therefore, these corridors are sometimes referred to as the "Crete corridors" or "Helsinki corridors", regardless of their geographical locations. A tenth corridor was proposed after the end of hostilities between the states of the former Yugoslavia.

These development corridors are distinct from the Trans-European transport networks, which include all major established routes in the European Union, although there are proposals to combine the two systems, since most of the involved countries now are members of the EU.

The Pan-European transport corridors include:

Corridor I (North-South): Helsinki – Tallinn – Riga – Kaunas and Klaipėda – Warsaw and Gdańsk.

Branch A (via Rail Hanseatica): St. Petersburg to Riga to Kaliningrad to Gdańsk to Lübeck.

Branch B (via Baltica/E 67): Helsinki to Warsaw.

Corridor II (East-West): Berlin – Poznań – Warsaw – Brest – Minsk – Smolensk – Moscow – Nizhny Novgorod.

Corridor III:Brussels – Aachen – Cologne – Dresden – Wrocław – Katowice – Kraków – Lviv – Kiev.

Branch A: Berlin – Wrocław.

Corridor IV:Dresden / Nuremberg – Prague – Vienna – Bratislava – Győr – Budapest – Arad – Bucharest – Constanţa / Craiova – Sofia – Thessaloniki / Plovdiv – Istanbul.

Corridor V (East-West): Venice – Trieste / Koper – Ljubljana – Maribor – Budapest – Uzhhorod – Lviv – Kiev.

Branch A: Bratislava – Žilina – Košice – Uzhhorod.

Branch B: Rijeka - Zagreb – Budapest.

Branch C: Ploče – Sarajevo – Osijek – Budapest.

Corridor VI (North-South): Gdańsk - Katowice - Žilina, with a western branch Katowice-Brno.

Corridor VII (Northwest-Southeast): along the Danube River.

Corridor VIII: Durrës – Tirana – Skopje – Sofia – Plovdiv – Burgas – Varna – Constanţa.

Corridor IX: Helsinki – Vyborg – St. Petersburg – Pskov – Gomel – Kiev – Ljubashevka – Chişinău – Bucharest – Dimitrovgrad – Alexandroupolis.

Major sub-alignment: St. Petersburg - Moscow - Kiev.

Branch A: Klaipeda – Vilnius – Minsk – Gomel.

Branch B: Kaliningrad – Vilnius – Minsk – Gomel.

Branch C: Ljubashevka – Rozdilna – Odessa.

Corridor X: Salzburg – Ljubljana – Zagreb – Beograd – Niš – Skopje – Veles – Thessaloniki.

Branch A: Graz – Maribor – Zagreb.

Branch B: Budapest – Novi Sad – Beograd.

Branch C: Niš – Sofia – Plovdiv – Dimitrovgrad – Istanbul via Corridor IV.

Branch D: Veles – Prilep – Bitola – Florina – Igoumenitsa.

The Pan-European transport corridors form the basis for linking the trans-European transport networks with the Central and Eastern European states. They are a further-developed form of the Western European transport network's major transport arteries. Their definition is based on co-ordination between the EU Commission, the EFTA (European Free Trade Association) States, the ECMT (European Conference of Ministers of Transport), the UNECE (United Nations/Economic Commission for Europe) and the international financial institutions with the Central and Eastern European states.

Diverse activities have now been undertaken to push development of these transport arteries forwards. Several joint memoranda by the participating states on individual corridors or parts thereof have already been signed, and studies on diverse implementation aspects have been launched, some of which have already been completed. Initial construction and organisational measures have already been commenced or implemented.

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