Paris container terminal opens on River Seine
A freight transportation joint venture opened a container terminal on the River Seine outside of Paris to support increased container-on-barge traffic between the Port of Le Havre and France's largest consumption market.
The inland container terminal is located in Evry, a large warehouse district east of the capital city. Operated by Terminaux de Seine, a partnership between Soci't' Havraise de Gestion et de Transport (SHGT), a bulk cargo stevedoring company in Le Havre, and barge operator Soci't' Cooperative Artisanale de Transport, or SCAT, the terminal has 10,000 TEUs of capacity per year.
The new terminal adds another transfer point on the short sea shipping route between the northern port of Le Havre and Paris. Last year, the 10 container terminals and six barge operators on the route handled 160,000 TEUs, about 20 percent of the container volume that moves between the two cities.
Two regular container services already call at Evry and the Le Havre port authority said other waterway operators are organizing more services.
The Le Havre Port Authority plans to further increase inland container transport by river with the construction of a new multimodal terminal, scheduled for completion in 2013.
Public policy in France strongly supports short-sea shipping as a way to reduce emissions from trucks.