Combined “Road - Rail - Road” Transport

Today in Bulgaria there are no Ro-La services. The hopes for their development, which will bring profit to both BDZ and the road hauliers, are related to the obvious increase in the number of freight road vehicles running via the borders with our neighbouring countries. Very good conditions for combined services via Romania will be established after the reconstruction of the railway corridor No IV from Curtici station at the Hungarian border to Constanca port and from there on - by ferryboat to the Turkish port of Samsun. If BDZ does not develop combined services via Bulgaria, then the transport flows between Europe and South-West Asia will be diverted from our territory. The requirements and necessary documents for the implementation of combined freight services in Bulgaria are set in Regulation No 53, dated 10th February 2003, on combined freight services. The draft, completed in November 2004, for a strategy for the development of the national transport system of the Republic of Bulgaria by 2015 contains a provision for the engagement of the Government to construct an intermodal terminal in the region around Sofia, which will: handle wagons from and to Turkey, Greece, Serbia and Montenegro and Central and Eastern Europe; function as a distribution hub for Bulgarian imports and exports by road and rail and in which the freight will be grouped and put into containers and further transported to the relevant destinations. The preliminary calculations show that Sofia terminal facility will cost about EUR25 million if it is constructed at Kazichene. We should take into consideration the fact that if this terminal facility is built at Voluiak station, the relevant costs will amount to EUR5-6 million and its area will be sufficiently large and furthermore it will have the capacity to handle more than twenty trains per day or 400 TIR trucks. This terminal facility could be constructed in several phases and the necessary initial costs will be low. In the vicinity there are terrains, on which no construction work has been done, and which could be utilised for the expansion of the terminal.The European transport policy envisages legislative actions to boost the modal shift from road to rail, river and sea transport. But legislative actions should be combined with economic ones. In order to introduce Ro-La technology it is necessary: to assign Bulgarian companies the task of elaborating the design and the construction of a combined intermodal terminal in Sofia on a site, which is the property of National Railway Infrastructure Company (NRIC), at Voluiak station; to purchase or lease low-platform ‘Alpine’ type wagons. These wagons have been tried out by BDZ and instructions for the operation of such train compositions have been elaborated since 29th November 1994; to develop tariffs to promote these services; to elaborate international agreements between MTC and BDZ EAD on the Bulgarian part and the foreign railway administrations, via the territories of which the Ro-La trains will operate.The necessary funds are not overwhelmingly large. The initial steps should be the construction of a combined container terminal for Ro-La services at the Voluiak station in Sofia and the purchase of wagons.The funds should be provided by the state budget by means of a credit with a certain period of grace. The financial support from the state budget should be allocated to BDZ EAD and NRIC. This can be provided as a credit at the ordinary interest rate of 6-7% and with a certain period of grace or as grant funds from the budget. These investments will be paid back to the state by means of: reduced costs for road repair works in result of a lesser number of heavy road vehicles to deteriorate the roads; reduced negative side-effects for towns with large TIR traffic; improved competitiveness of Bulgarian exporting companies due to improved delivery terms.