The Finnish Technical and Regional Case Studies in the Context of the Transport Integration in the Baltic Sea Region
1 General
The objective of the Finnish case studies in the BALTICOM Project are:
· To improve the co-operation of various actors in the transportation chain in Finland and in the interrelations of the Finnish ports with other sub-regions in the Baltic Sea Region
· To study, analyse and improve the logistics chains between the Finnish ports of Vaasa, Kotka and Hamina, their respective hinterlands and the ports in Germany, especially Hamburg
· To integrate actors of all public levels in order to come to common positive solutions for the transport chains as a whole
· To develop appropriate tools of information technology by linking and integrating the best results of the development work done so far
· To establish adequate discussion fora to bring together interest of the transport sector and of regional planning - the involvement of the Regional Councils is very important
To be able to reach these objectives the following approach has been used:
· To come concrete improvements in transport and logistics the exchange of information between ports and their Finnish hinterlands has been studied
· The solutions meeting the demands of several independent actors in Southern and Eastern Finland have been sought
· Especially Customs procedures and operations have been focused
· Also the issues related to the dangerous goods have been of great importance
· The results of related projects such as PortNet and Port@Net have been used
· There has been a strong interrelation with other activities and Work Packages in the BALTICOM Project
· The impacts of better integration in national and in international transports on basic structures and regional/spatial development have been and will be assessed
· The Finnish regional administration have been active and showed that not only ports, but also their hinterlands deserve special attention
The activities in Finland have been divided into two main parts:
1. Technical level
2. Spatial level
2 The technical level
The goal of the technical level of the Finnish case is to ”Improve the information flow of the waterborne traffic between Hamburg and Finland". However there has been a decision not to exclude other German ports, where and when needed. Naturally there are a lot of issues that are related to this header. However the main topics in the BALTICOM project on the technical level have been:
· Customs issues
· Possibilities to utilise the Port@Net -system
· Communication with/between terminal operators
· Communication with/between road transport operators concerning dangerous goods
Port@Net is an internet-based system which has replaced the old PortNet-system at the end of 1999. The main idea of the Port@Net system is to act as “an electric mailbox” between the shipping companies and the following Finnish authorities:
· Port authority
· Customs
· Finnish Maritime Administration
Earlier the shipping companies (or their agents) had to make separate and paper based announcements for all these authorities. Port@Net will replace these separate announcements with one electronic announcement (electronic manifest). The electronic manifest is delivered to the Port@Net system by using CUSCAR, CUSREP and IFTDGN messages. The content of the manifest is mainly related to customs issues and dangerous cargo. It also gives possibilities for invoicing and statistical needs.
There have been some basic problems to be solved related to the customs issues, especially when it comes to export from Finland via Hamburg to third countries in the case of single transport agreement. The goods are declared in Finland and the transit-status of the cargo has to be proved to the German customs. Currently this information flow is not as fluent as it should be. The German customs does not always have the needed data in time. The following chart describes the basic idea of the Finnish technical level case:
The German and Finnish customs have negotiated and agreed upon the main principles of the new arrangements. The Finnish customs have informed the main terminal operators, sea carriers and other users about the negotiations and the main principles and now the Finnish customs are currently preparing the guidelines for the new customs process.
There are some steps to be taken in the near future:
· The new instructions for the new terminal announcement from the Finnish customs
· The education and information activities related to the new terminal announcement from the Finnish customs
· The new terminal declaration to be taken into use
· The data transfer between Port@Net and GEGIS-system related to the dangerous goods
3 Spatial level
The following figure illustrates the spatial level case areas (Kotka-Hamina and Vaasa).
The objective of the spatial level in the Finnish case has been "To improve the knowledge of the relationship between spatial planning and transport sector". The main topics have been:
· Analysis of the Baltic transport market and its development
· Regional case of Kotka-Hamina (ports and hinterland)
· Regional case of Vaasa (port and hinterland)
In addition to these the Finnish partners have participated and contributed to the study of VTS (WP10 in the BALTICOM Project).
The spatial planning has started with the market analysis and the first results and statistics are available (container transports between the port of Hamburg and other Baltic ports). Based on the results of the market analysis especially the Kotka-Hamina region will develop alternative scenarios for the future. The work is now being done and thus the final results are not yet available. However it seems that in 1996 the container traffic between Estonia and Hamburg has started to grow rapidly even though the volume is rather small when compared with the container traffic between Finland and Hamburg.
The following chart describes the container traffic development between the Port of Hamburg and Finland, Latvia Lithuania and Estonia. It shows rather well that the volume of container traffic to/from Finland is still much larger that the volume of the ports in Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia. However the container traffic is growing faster in Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia than in Finland. It seems that in the transito traffic to Russia from outside Europe the main alternatives are either the Russian ports or the Finnish ports.
Based on the market analysis, development trends and the objectives of regional and national actors (policy and decision makers etc.) there will be suggestions for the future actions to develop the ports and the hinterland. The discussions and efforts to improve and develop the relationship between spatial planning and transport sector have started. Both in Kotka-Hamina and Vaasa the regional governments have actively participated the spatial planning efforts. The ports and then hinterlands are searching for their future roles and focus areas in the future. The fact is that the Baltic Sea is and will be the main link between Kotka-Hamina & Vaasa and the rest of Europe.
Thus the both spatial cases are studying the present traffic and material flows and trying to estimate the flows in the future. The changing markets of the Baltic Sea will be taken into account. Alternative scenarios will be developed. The scenarios will include traffic frequencies, information flows, investment needs etc. Different traffic modes will be analysed.
It is also important to study the needs, possibilities and plans of the hinterland areas and match them with the objectives of the case ports. The aim is to find realistic alternatives for the future. Here Kotka-Hamina and Vaasa are in the different situation
For the Kotka-Hamina case it is important to find the potential future cargo flows. The development of other Baltic ports, the increasing amount of the unitised cargo, the economic development of the hinterland area, the Russian development etc. have to be taken into account, when planning the future activities. The interests of Kotka-Hamina are not only in the transports to and from Russia, but also in the development of the national hinterland and related transports and logistics.
The studies so far show that the Kotka-Hamina region has various possibilities to develop its position as a transit traffic node. The Kotka-Hamina–region has relatively strong possibilities to at least strengthen it’s position in transit traffic. There are several important issues that effect the choice of the transito port such as:
· Location
· Ownership
· Terminals
· Handling costs
· Ship traffic and cargo
· Fairways and piloting
· Ice conditions and icebreaker service
· Safety
· Development plans
Kotka-Hamina–region is a strong candidate evaluated through almost any of the previous factors. It’s located geographically close to Russia and there are many connection possibilities, e.g. good-quality road networks (all the way to the Russian border) and also rail, air and sea connections. Kotka-Hamina–region can offer a direct route to Russian market. Unfortunately transit traffic is dependent mostly on transit going to Russia, meaning that the volume of the transit through Kotka-Hamina region is vulnerable to changes in economical development in Russia. This can also been seen in the transito statistics.
Because one of the objectives of the Finnish case study is to look for points of convergence between regional development, spatial planning and transport sector, the regional development plans of Kotka and Hamina will also be studied. The same goes with Vaasa. Regional development plans show how committed the regions are to develop different factors affecting the region's potentiality to succeed and, considering the needs of the study, how the improvements of the traffic conditions match with these visions.
Although Kotka-Hamina seems, at least on paper, to have potential to improve its position, there are also some threats to be considered. It’s quite natural that Russia would like the cargo traffic to be shipped straight to Russian ports. The port of St. Petersburg is often considered to be a threat to the ports of Kotka and Hamina. However it seems that at least in the (near) future the real threat to the ports of Kotka and Hamina is not St. Petersburg but Vysotsk/Vyborg. It seems that St. Petersburg is considered to have various problems to face. Instead of problems Vysotsk has quite promising development prospects. In this context it still must be mentioned that with today’s alternatives companies show only little interest to operate through direct links with Russia. Situation may alter, if conditions change, that is if the direct link with Russia becomes better and cheaper than alternatives today.
Development scenes of the Kotka-Hamina–region are being evaluated also based on statistical studies. However there are some problems concerning the statistic information. Firstly, almost all statistics available are at least a few years old. Yet e.g. the economical changes happen sometimes very quickly. So the time delay of the statistics hinders making exact, up to date conclusions. Secondly, the form of statistics concerning different ports varies. Also because there’s no international standard how to compile these statistics, the content of the different statistics available is not always comparable. This means that for example the number of cargo traffic volumes may vary depending on which statistics are being observed. Anyhow as mentioned earlier, some statistics, considered to be reliable, have already been available and some analysis has been also already made.
The extinction of the Tax Free business has been a serious drawback for the port of Vaasa. New ideas have to be developed to maintain the port active. The new ideas of co-operation between neighbouring ports will be studied. The co-operation may mean combining material flows and using the same vessel capacity for certain cargo types (for instance timber). Further calculations to estimate the possibilities and viability of different scenarios will be done.
Further information will be gathered in Kotka-Hamina and Vaasa by interviewing different user groups such as terminal operators and shipping lines. The frame for the interviews will be formed based on statistical studies. Most of the studies are and will be quantitative, so interviews bring a more qualitative approach to this study. Results from the interviews will also, hopefully, have more explanatory content than for example the statistics alone. Reasons behind the issues found through quantitative analysis can be enlightened through interviews.