673
1 INTRODUCTION
NAPAportsoriginatedanddevelopedprimarilydue
to their favourable geographical position at the
intersection of the traffic direction Adriatic‐Danube
region.ThemaintaskoftheAssociation‐comprising
ports of Ravenna, Venice, Trieste, Koper, Rijeka,
Monfalcone and Chioggia‐is to direct the ports to
operateintheint
ernationalmarketasasinglemulti‐
portsystem.Amongother,harbourmembersagreed
upon strengthening the links between transport
infrastructure of the North Adriatic transport route
andthePan‐Europeantransportcorridors,supporting
inclusionoftheCentralEuropeanTransportCorridor
intheTEN‐Tnetwork(Perkovičet al. 2013,NAPA
2016). Considering their common hinterland area,
NAPA ports act as mut
ually competitive port
systems. On the other hand, they are representing
common competitiveness toward other geo‐traffic
flowswheregoodsfromcountriesofMiddleEurope
aretransported.
The aim of the proposed paper, representing the
continuationofresearch(Kosetal.2016)istojustify
the redirection of the northern t
raffic flow by
redirecting cargoes to the Adriatic Sea, i.e. through
the ports of NAPA (the southern traffic flow).
Structural analysis was conducted by exploring
features of both traffic flows, by determining
representative services for both directions: from the
Northern and Southern European Traffic Flow Land
Segment Analysis as Part of the Redirection
Justification
S.Vilke,D.Brčić&S.Kos
UniversityofRijeka,Rijeka,Croatia
ABSTRACT:Naturalgeotrafficflowsactasoneofthemostimportantfactorsdirectlyaffectingredirectionsof
theworldtransportationroutes.Intermsofdoor‐to‐doormultimodaltransportchain,severalroutesfromFar
EasttowardEuropeandestinationsexist,withNorthernEuropeanrouteactingasprevailingone.Theproposed
pa
per elaborates possibilities of redirection of the traffic flow by directing cargoes to an alternative route
through the Adriatic Sea. The aim is to justify realisation of mentioned possibility in terms of land
transportation segment analysis, i.e. by analysing cargo transportation from ports to final destinations in
Central Europe, pla
ced in natural gravitational hinterland of ports of Northern Adriatic Port Association
(NAPA).Geo‐trafficandlogistics’analysesofNAPAportsarepresentedinthepaper.Containertrafficandits
trendascomparedwithNorthernEuropeanportsareanalysed.Thedevelopmentplansofinlandconnections
arepresentedinfunctionofjust
ificationofthetrafficflowredirection.Amodelfortheselectionandevaluation
oftheoptimalcontainertransportroutebyusingthemultiplecriteriaanalysis(MCA)hasbeenintroducedand
developed.ThemodelwasappliedfortheselectionoftherepresentativeserviceconnectingFarEast(origin)
andthecentralEurope(destination)bydet
ailedanalysisofthelandtransportationsegment.ThePROMETHEE
method was used for the model testing and evaluation. Summarised results are presented and discussed
tendingtoconfirmationofthetrafficflowredirectionjustification.
http://www.transnav.eu
the International Journal
on Marine Navigation
and Safety of Sea Transportation
Volume 11
Number 4
December 2017
DOI:10.12716/1001.11.04.14
674
Far East port of Shanghai as origin towards Central
European economic centre Munich as final
destination. Results are presented and discussed in
termsofredirectionjustification.Analyseshavebeen
made by employing economical, logistic, and
geographical and resource parameters representing
each direction, as shown in the corresponding
chapter. Findings regarding
optimal transport route
determinationwereverifiedwiththeMCA
application,employingthePreferenceRanking
Organisation METHod for Enrichment of Evaluations
(PROMETHEE)andGeometricalAnalysisforInteractive
Aid (GAIA) methods. For this purpose, Visual
PROMETHEE software (Mareschal 2013) was used.
The importance of certain groups of criteria and
criteriarespectively,determined
inthemodelforthe
evaluation and selection of a container transport
route, together with parameters’ values of
appropriatecriteriaforthedefinedvariantsolutions,
were used as input data. Groups of criteria were
defined as economic, transport and environmental,
each occupying the appropriate share. Four possible
transportation services (variants of
both directions)
weredeterminedandanalysedthroughtheproposed
model. Findings showed significant bias toward the
southernlines,withbothroadandraillandtransport
component. The summary of findings represents
reasonablepathforfurtherresearchinthe proposed
direction.
2 GEO‐TRAFFICANDLOGISTICS’ASPECTOF
PORTSOFNAPA
In terms of operation and development of Northern
Adriatic ports and corresponding traffic direction,
elementary logistic advantage is their favourable
geographical position. Although ports of NAPA
originate from different countries, each operating
under its specific conditions, geographical location
and relational/respective hinterland are cause of
ports’ common features. NAPA ports are the
main
linkofthesoutherntrafficEuropeanflow,theshortest
natural direction Europe is connected with Asia,
Africa and Australia, linking two economically
complementaryworlds(Kos,Vilke&Brčić2016).
Development of relations in the port services
market has led to other traffic directions coming to
the fore, accentuating
the competitiveness problem
towards the southern traffic flow. The Northern
Atlantic traffic direction (the northern traffic flow)
acts as dominant, with final points being Western‐
European ports of Hamburg, Rotterdam, Antwerp,
BremenandAmsterdam.Inspiteoflongerdistance,
engagement of the northern route is constantly
increasing. Greater distance is compensated
with
other logistic elements, such as contemporary roads
and railway network, developed application of
modern traffic technologies and cargo handling,
logisticandITnetwork,operationorganizationonthe
overall transportation path, active ports’ and
railways’commercialandpricingpolicy,etc.
Table1. Sea distances (in nautical miles) between ports of
Rijeka (Croatia), Trieste (Italy) and Hamburg (Germany),
andsignificantglobalports
_______________________________________________
PortRijeka Trieste Hamburg
_______________________________________________
PortSaid 1254  1294  3551
Bombay4315  4340  6620
Shanghai 8555 8589  10855
NewYork 4785 
4 814 3535
Lagos4765 
4 999 3720
BuenosAires 6955  6983  6665
Singapore 6275  6308  8585
HongKong7734  7768 10029
_______________________________________________
SeadistancesfromtheSuezChanneltoNorthern
Adriatic ports represents one third of the same
distance towards North Sea European ports.
Considering Northern and Western European ports,
sea distance from Far East ports and Northern
Adriatic ports is approximately 2 000 nautical miles
shorter,resultinginshortertravel/voyagetimeup
to
tendays(Table1).Consideringeconomicalaspectof
fuel expenses, this feature is furthermore expressed.
As for land cargo traffic directions, main Central
European industrial and commercial centres are
closer to the North Adriatic region for 400‐600 km
(Table 2). Despite presented facts, current traffic in
Adriatic region
is not suitable to its favourable
geographicaladvantages,sincethemajority of cargo
flows are transported through northern ports. In
general, goods originating from Danube region are
faster and/or with lower process transported by
longer but more contemporary lowland
transportation roads/lines, and slower and/or with
higher prices by using mountainous transportation
roads/lines towards geographically closer/nearer
NorthernAdriaticports.Besidestransportationprice,
dominant factor for selecting the traffic flow is the
transport speed. Two physically different distances
arebecomingeconomicallyequal,evenexpressingan
economic advantage of the longer transportation
path.
Table2.Railwaydistance(inkm)oftheNorthernAdriatic
and North European ports to specific Central European
economiccentres
_______________________________________________
Railway Rijeka Koper Trieste Hamburg Rostock
_______________________________________________
Budapest 592 634 626 1406 1166
Bratislava 602 650 639 1022 980
Prague 806 854 810 686 644
Vienna 580 599 584 990 984
Linz557 549 517 911 923
Munich 563 599 527 777 876
_______________________________________________
Thisnewlogisticandeconomicprinciplesleadto
changes in movement of cargo flows on the global
market, as well as strengthening of particular traffic
directionstothedetrimentofothers.Movementand
definition of cargo flows and creation of particular
traffic directions are nowadays governed by global
logistics and large
shipping companies according to
their interests. In European and global market, the
role of port systems considerably changed; certain
advantages and drawbacks are evaluated by traffic
and economic and political interests of individual
European countries. For instance, maritime cargo
transportationfromAsiatoMaltaemployingtheship
ofequalsize
andgeneralfeaturesismoreexpensive
than from the same origin to the port of Hamburg,
675
nevertheless the distance of the voyage. In general,
the price of the total transportation from Asia to
Hungary is approximately on the same level if it is
conducted through northern Adriatic or North
WesternEuropeanports.Inthisway,competitiveness
ofnorthernAdriaticportsishampered,whilethesole
selection
of these ports depends primarily on large
Asian carriers, as well as of European Union and
othercountriesgovernments’politics.
3 ANOVERVIEWOFNORTHERNADRIATIC
ANDNORTHERNEUROPEANPORTS’CARGO
TURNOVER
Reflection of business success and development
possibilitiesofeachportisthemovementofitscargo.
Also, in
order to achieve qualitative and long‐term
planning of future activities and development
strategy,thefirststepistomakedetailedanalysisof
itscargo flows movements, as well as to investigate
currentandpotentiallyfuturemarketofportservices.
Domestic traffic from the national foreign trade
represents secure substrate of
goods, subject to
relatively accurate planning of quality and quantity.
Transittrafficasnon‐commodityexportwhichcreates
aforeigncurrencyincomeisofinvaluableimportance
for ports’ operability and further development.
Transit countries can choose between several traffic
directions, therefore ports have to invest great
businessskillsinorder
topreserveacquiredpositions
and strengthening of their own business on the
internationalportservicesmarket.
Table3. Total turnover movement (in 000 tonnes)
through
North European ports and the ports of Rijeka,
Trieste,KoperandVenezia(2011‐2015)(PA2017,PANW
2017,PH2017,PK2017,PR2017,PROT2017,PTS2017,PBB
2017)
_______________________________________________
Ports2011 2012 2013 2014 2015diff.
(%)
_______________________________________________
Hamburg 132.2 130.9 138.1 145.1 137.8 4.2
Bremen 80.6 84.0 78.7 78.3 73.5‐8.8
Amsterdam 93.0 94.3 95.8 98.0 98.86.2
Rotterdam 434.5 441.5 440.5 444.7 466.4 7.3
Antwerp 187.2 184.1 191.0 199.0 208.4 11.4
Total 927.5 934.8 944.0 964.9 984.9 6.2
NAPA 101.0 100.9 108.0 107.7 115.3 14.2
_______________________________________________
The gravitational hinterland of NAPA ports
encompassesareasofAustria,Hungary,Slovakiaand
Czech Republic, South Germany and South Poland,
westernpartsofUkraineandRomania,easternparts
ofSwitzerlandandpartiallyBosniaandHerzegovina
andSerbia.InTable3,comparisonbetweenNorthern
European and NAPA ports’ total cargo turnover
movement
during recent years is presented.
ContainerturnoverispresentedinTable4.
DespitethatNAPAportsarerankedassmalland
medium‐sized ports when compared to world
relations,thereisevidentgrowthoftotalturnoverof
cargoes,higherthanintheNorthEuropeanports.
Table4. Container turnover movement (000 TEU)
through
NorthEuropeanportsandthroughtheportsof
Rijeka,Trieste,KoperandVenezia(2011‐2015)(PA2017,
PANW2017,PH2017,PK2017,PR2017,PROT2017,PTS
2017,PBB2017)
_______________________________________________
Ports
2011 2012201320142015 diff.
(%)
_______________________________________________
Hamburg
 9.08.86 9.26 9.73 8.82‐2.1
Bremen5.96.12 5.84 5.80 5.55‐6.2
Rotterdam 11.9 11.8711.6212.3012.233
Antwerp 8.7 8.64 8.58 8.98 9.6511.4
Total  35.5 35.4835.2936.8 36.252.2
NAPA 1.13 1.52 1.65 1.79 2.0178.5
_______________________________________________
Realized container turnover growth of North
Europeanportsinelaboratedperiodwas2.2%,while
the container traffic of NAPA ports grew by 78.5%.
Considering the increase of cargo flows via other
routes,especiallyintheproportionofHungarianand
Austrian cargoes, the necessity of joint action of
NAPAportstowardsthe
competitionisimposed.
4 DEVELOPMENTPLANSOFINLAND
CONNECTIONSBETWEENNAPAPORTS
RIJEKA,KOPERANDTRIESTE
Asstatedpreviously,functionalityofNAPAportsas
multi‐port gateway system is essential. In this
chapter, development plans for land interconnection
ofNAPAportsarepresented.
4.1 TheconstructionofthehighwayRijeka‐
Koper‐
Trieste
MinistryoftheEnvironmentandSpatialPlanningof
the Republic of Slovenia published National Spatial
Development Plan (NDSP) (LUZ 2011) for the
connectionbetween border‐crossing Jelšane with the
Koper‐Ljubljanahighway.Aftertheproposal,initial
highway point with the Republic of Croatia was
defined, while its merging is
foreseen in three
possible junctions: Postojna, Razdrto or Diva ča. The
length of the highway depends upon a specific
junction,andwillamount34to39km.Accordingto
theproject,thehighwayhastypicalcrosssectionwith
four lanes of 3.75 m in length. The project speed
amounts to
120 km/h, with minimal curvature of
horizontal radius being 750 m. There are nine
potential corridors of the Rijeka‐Trieste highway
routes,whicharediscussedintheframeofNSDP,as
presented on Figure 1. Three main and 6 additional
variants are noted for further discussion. According
tonorthern(‘Postojna’)variant,
highwaypassesfrom
IlirskaBistricato Postojna andtheKoper‐Ljubljana
highwayjunction.Thevariantimplyingconnectionin
Postojna consists of four additional variants.
Accordingtosecondvariant,thejunctionwithKoper
‐ Ljubljana highway is situated slightly south in the
Razdrtojunction,whileaccordingtosouthernvaria nt
thehighwaywould
endintheDivačajunction(near
theportofKoper).The‘Divača’variantincludestwo
additionalsub‐variants.
Nowadaysitseemsmorelikely(inpoliticalterms)
thatSloveniawillchoosethehighwayroutetowards
Postojna (Rupa‐Postojna section), producing a