Project title

INland TRAnsports on SEA routes / INTRASEA

Lead Partner

Swedish Maritime Administration

Contact person

Willand Ringborg

E-mail

export@sjofartsverket.se

Homepage

Address

Phone

+46 11 191249

Fax

Measure:

Problem to be addressed:

Expected substantial increase in traffic volumes in the Baltic Sea Region after EU-enlargement calls for a targeted development of sustainable transport options in the BSR in order to cope with the future challenges in transport. Inland waterways are an important asset in this context, and therefore inland navigation, river-sea shipping and intermodal transport involving inland navigation need to be promoted. At the same time, inland waterways are often attractive areas for the tourism and recreation and thus they are also an important factor for economic development. All these aspects need also to be seen from a perspective a balanced spatial planning. The predecessor project INLATRANS in INTERREG II C already laid the foundation for the work in the above-described sectors, and this will be considerably extended in INTRASEA.

Central objectives:

INTRASEA is aiming at defining strategic inland waterways and routes in the BSR, identifying the characteristics the inland waterway infrastructure and relevant infrastructure plans in the participating countries, networking inland waterway stakeholders from the transport and tourism as well as specialists spatial planning sector, investigating the potential for modal shift from road transport to inland navigation and river-sea shipping, modelling planning scenarios for future development patterns, demonstrating an accompanying transport information system for inland navigation stakeholders, studying environmental aspects of modal shift and sustainable river construction practices increasing their capacity in an environmentally friendly way (e.g. paying attention to flood protection issues), preparing decisions on larger investments in inland waterways and preparing the economic, environmental and spatial planning justification for it as well as developing and disseminating the possibility to use fairways for national and international tourism and recreation.

Expected outcome:

The outcome of INTRASEA will be an extended database on inland waterways and routes based on the INLATRANS approach, a network of specialists in spatial planning, inland waterway transport and tourism, a common development strategy in the BSR for inland waterway development, a study on modal shift to inland navigation and river sea-shipping including simulations and scenario development, a study on environmental issues, a pilot application for a inland waterway transport chain information system based on a model coming from the BALTICOM project in INTERREG II C, justifications for plans and investment projects in inland waterways and related infrastructure, study tourism development as well as a database for tourism opportunities along major rivers in the participating countries. These activities will be accompanied by respective reports and seminars involving the stakeholders.