Ekol Develops Intermodal Transport
Just a few weeks ago Ekol Logistics announced opening an office in the 16th country – Sweden but the company also keeps developing intermodal connections. Right now Ekol owns not only two ports (one in Trieste, Italy and a new one in Yalova, close to Istanbul), 6 Ro-Ros and more than 5,500 transport means, but it also has 48 dedicated block train trips per week. The strategy of Ekol is to develop intermodal transport and offer environment-friendly solutions.
Our strategy is to have more and more block trains in Europe. We would also like to increase the Ro-Ro capacity in our network and it is what we are doing. We are glad to announce the increase in the number of our vessel connections between France and Turkey to two per week and the increase in the number of train connections Sete to Paris to two per week. On top of that we have also added a completely new train connection from Sete to Zeebrugge, Belgium. In this way we can connect France, the Benelux, Sweden and the UK with South Europe, Turkey, the Middle East and Maghreb. At the same time this step makes Sete our main Hub in the South European region. This new route can be utilized for the future volumes between South Europe and Sweden or Nordics countries. It is supporting growth also in “the youngest” country where Ekol has own organization – Sweden.
said Alaa Jennane, the Director of Engineering Business Development of Ekol.
It is more than 1,200 km between these cities and it takes nearly 22 hours for the new Ekol train to connect Sete and Zeebrugge. It goes two times per week with the capacity of 44 units per train and leaves Sete on Wednesdays and Sundays at 18:30 and arrives at Zeebrugge on Thursdays and Mondays at 16:00. From Zeebrugge the train leaves on Tuesdays and Fridays at 11:30 and arrives on Wednesdays and Saturdays at 7:50.
This train will substitute another one between Trieste and Zeebrugge but it has a bigger capacity.
Ekol implements the second weekly train between Sete and Paris (in the first few months it was just one time per week). It takes nearly 14 hours to connect Sete and Paris with the capacity of maximum 50 units per train and it will be the longest train in Ekol network.
It is worth stressing that both trains (Sete – Paris and Sete – Zeebrugge) are developed in collaboration with VIIA as the rail operator.
Thanks to the opening of this new train connection and increasing the frequency of the current ones, Ekol saves monthly 914 000 kg of CO2 and more than 41,000 trees that are equivalent of a forest of the size of 97 football fields.
