EARLY results from the Singer project were announced in Ljubljana on June 8.
The Slovenian Intermodal Gateway to European Rail project is being supported for the first two years by the EU’s Marco Polo programme (RG 11.04 p728). The aim is to develop ’an international network of unaccompanied services’ between western, central and eastern Europe’.
The Singer consortium of SZ, Adria Kombi, Cemat, Hungaria Intermodal, Kombiverkehr and UIRR has put into place services from Ljubljana to München, Verona and Budapest. Connections extend into Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia and Romania.
According to Adria Kombi Operations Director Janez Merlak, the first eight months saw more than 85 million tonne-km switch to rail. He predicted that Singer would ’not only achieve, but exceed’ the target of 330 million tonne-km in the first two years. SZ’s Assistant Director, Freight, Igor Hribar said intermodal’s share of total SZ Cargo traffic had risen from 9% in 1998 to 18% in 2005.
