Port of Santander pushing for green corridor with Northern Europe

The president of the Port Authority is advocating in Valencia for the launch of a green corridor linking Madrid with northern Europe via the port of Santander.

A proposal that would involve combining the excellent short-distance maritime connectivity with the United Kingdom and northern Europe which the main Cantabrian infrastructure has with a Santander-Madrid rail motorway.

César Díaz, president of the Port Authority of Santander (APS): “We are prepared to lead this transition: we have renewed infrastructure, consolidated experience in road traffic (RoRo) and a port community expert in complex and intermodal logistics chains.”

The president stated during his participation in a round table discussion on maritime and rail intermodality at the annual Shortsea Valencia conference that the port of Santander is prepared to lead "the implementation of a complete green corridor, linking the logistics heart of the peninsula with Europe through a continuous, low-emission intermodal chain fully aligned with European sustainable mobility objectives."

This proposal, as Díaz explained, would involve “combining a Madrid-Valladolid-Palencia-Santander rail highway with the excellent short sea shipping connectivity with both the United Kingdom and Ireland, as well as with Northern Europe, which has the main Cantabrian infrastructure, through its regular, reliable and high-frequency connections, operated by a wide range of shipping companies.”

According to the president of the Port Authority of Seville (APS), this model would provide “an intermodal solution capable of offering reliability, reduced emissions, and efficiency, prioritizing rail transport to decarbonize long-distance land transport and Short Sea Shipping to connect with European markets, avoiding thousands of kilometers of road transport.” He added, “The port’s role, as the system’s coordinator and an intermodal logistics hub, would ensure smooth, competitive, and attractive transit for shippers.”

As evidence of Santander's suitability to lead this proposal, the head of the port authority also pointed out that the Cantabrian port is "highly specialized" in RoRo traffic and all its terminals have rail sidings. This specialization "is paying off," since "we are leaders on the Cantabrian coast in this type of cargo, both in tonnage and in intermodal transport units, and second in the entire General System of State Ports in rail-port intermodality rate, with a percentage close to 15%, while the average does not reach 5%."

Díaz has assured that the APS is continuously committed to increasing this share through investments both in the port's internal network and by collaborating with Adif on the Muriedas freight terminal, or in other interventions such as the 750-meter sidings at different points of the railway network.

The panel, moderated by the president of the Port Authority of Valencia, Mar Chao, also included Antonio Aguilar, from ADIF; Juan Carlos Arocas, from Transitalia; Jesús Calvo, from Tramesa and Fabrice Turquet, from Brittany Ferries.

This article was first published in Spanish by Actualidad:

https://actualidadmp.com/el-presidente-de-la-autoridad-portuaria-apuesta-en-valencia-por-lanzar-un-corredor-verde-que-una-madrid-con-el-norte-de-europa-a-traves-del-puerto-de-santander/