Page 8 - Port of Hamburg Magazine 1.2020

■ DIGITAL DECADE
CHRISTIAN PEGEL, STATE MINISTER OF ENERGY, INFRASTRUCTURE AND DIGITALIZATION OF THE STATE OF MECKLENBURG-VORPOMMERN
08 | Port of Hamburg Magazine | March 2020
Let’s look at rail traffic. That plays an important role as a carrier in all German ports. As part of its cli- mate protection programme, the German govern- ment has announced major investments in the rail sector. At the same time, conversion of supra-re- gional passenger traffic to a half-hour frequency has been announced. That arouses fears of delays for freight traffic. With digital solutions, wouldn’t improved utilization of infrastructure be possible? That’s certainly a possibility. German Rail is giving extensive consideration to arranging the system so that considerably more trains can be handled on block sections of mainline routes by using a combination of blockchain and digitalization. I assume that these are processes that will take longer than introducing the half-hour frequency on the Berlin–Hamburg route, which we welcome. If digitalization does not provide relief until a later stage, regional trains as well as freight traffic will initially be restricted. Therefore, we must in- vest in infrastructure by building track to cater for grow- ing freight traffic.
Do you really mean that digitalization is slower than infrastructure expansion?
In the light of the high standards of safety that we have for rail traffic in Germany, implementing something of this kind will require considerable effort. Given the complexity of the processes, we shall initially try out certain innovations on branch lines. We also need to observe European standards. We need both in parallel: infrastructure expansion and digitalization.
Every company in the logistics sector is of itself rel- atively far advanced with digitalization. Still miss- ing, however, are platform solutions for bundling data and controlling freight flows. Companies have misgivings about making their data available to a platform. Was anything said about this in the min- isterial round?
We discussed the problems involved at a meeting in Bremen last year between port ministers and business representatives. The politicians were more pressing and demanding on the subject than the businessmen. We need platforms of this kind. We must push on with this topic at the next ministerial conference.
With the German economy structured as it is, and with the share of SMEs – small and medium-sized enterprises – at 70 percent, it is essential to rec- ognize this. In the Port of Hamburg, for example, we find that it is sometimes difficult to persuade medium-sized firms to organize shipments by rail, although that is attractive for environmental policy reasons.
A single platform, combining rail, shipping, trucking and inland waterway craft, makes sense and pays off for the SMEs. Apart from the environmental angle that favours rail, driver shortages also play a part. Forwarders are reporting the problem of find- ing long-distance drivers. One solution would be to use rail for the long haul and trucking only for the ‘last mile’.
© EM