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M. Hoffmann, K. Haselbauer, R. Blab, T. Hartl, M. Simoner:
"Transport Economics And Impact Of Waterway Asset Management On Availability And Competitivety";
Talk: 33rd. PIANC WORD CONGRESS, San Francisco (invited); 2014-06-01 - 2014-06-05.

Economic development is closely linked to the demand of transportation and the supply of transport infrastructure. From 1995 to 2007 the total freight transport in the EU increased by 2.6% per year on average and was expected to grow 1.7% per year until 2030. However, in the same period freight transport on inland waterways increased only by 1.5% and is expected to grow by 1.0 % per year based on the European Energy and Transport Trends to 2030 (2007). As a result the market share of inland navigation dropped from 4.0% to 3.5% from 1995 to 2007. Despite the fact that investment needs per tonne-kilometre are considerably lower compared to any other mode of transport only a fraction of actual (re-)investment needs are met. The main infrastructural setbacks of inland navigation e.g. on the Danube are a lower availability and utilization of possible loaded draught during low water periods as well as a limited amount of transport - affine bulk cargo and bidirectional utilization for this linear mode of transport. Possible bottlenecks arise especially in form of short stretches of shallow or narrow locations resulting in a limited navigability on the entire Danube. Therefore, even optimized fairway maintenance works and sufficient reinvestments on national river stretches will not yield the targeted results (e.g. AGN 1996, DC 2013) if just some of these bottlenecks will remain - e.g. due to a lack of resources or political and environmental restrictions. Waiting times as a result of oncoming traffic at narrow bottlenecks of a few minutes as worst case scenario are negligible in their cost-effectiveness compared to transport durations of one to three weeks. To compete successfully in the transport market IWT must be able to offer favourable transport prizes throughout the year. Through a high utilization of transport capacity, transport cost consisting of fixed and variable costs per ton can be distributed on a higher amount of goods leading to decreasing unit costs. Due to the high amount of fixed costs on the one hand, including standby costs incurred by provision of the vessel fleet and costs for pre- and end haulage, that have to be considered particularly for transport chains, and distance related comparably low variable costs on the other hand, IWS can exploit their advantages especially for long transport distances and bulky cargo. The paper provides an overview of transport costs for road, rail and inland navigation depending on utilization and transport distance on the transport market in Europe. With special emphasis on the vessel fleet on the Danube the impact of different levels of fairway availability on loaded draught and resulting transport costs are discussed. Based on an in depth research on all main cost factors of inland navigation it can be concluded that the necessary utilization of the vessel fleet to stay in the market ranges from 55 to 60 %. The paper concludes with an analysis of impacts of improved transport conditions on market shares in Europe in general and the possible prospects for different development scenarios in inland navigation.

Transport economics, cost comparison, utilization, inland navigation, scenarios