Development of a Port-Hinterland Rail Concept for Egypt
Development of a Port-Hinterland Rail Concept for Egypt
Eurogate, one of the largest container terminal operating groups in the world, aims at developing and operating a new container-terminal in the Port of Damietta, Egypt. One major precondition for this step is the provision of a development strategy for a vertical integrated container supply chain from the vessel via port handling and railroad to selected inland container terminals (ICT) to serve the demand of major economic and industrial areas in Egypt.
Eurogate plans to present this strategy to the Ministry of Transport of the Arab Republic of Egypt and asked TransCare to supply the hinterland part of the strategy and to review the development layout of the rail facilities on the new container terminal in Damietta Port and in the selected ICTs.
TransCare prepared a status quo analysis of the container hinterland transport in Egypt’s ports with focus on Damietta from a commercial and an operational/technical side. Therefore the current status and the development plans of the Egypt National Railways (ENR) were described, evaluating the rail infrastructure from potential origins/destinations to Damietta and available rail operations on these lines. TransCare identified necessary technical and political measures to allow an efficient and reliable rail link to Damietta and completed a screening of industrial agglomerations in the country. Site visits and the estimation of future volumes resulted in the definition of potential ICT locations in Egypt as connection points to Damietta.
After the determination of legal requirements to start own train connections TransCare developed a business case of the operation and defined the necessary steps and recommendations as a basis for Phase II of the feasibility study – a detailed business plan including volume evaluation.
As basis for qualitative and quantitative investment decisions, a detailed operational rail concept including schematic layout designs for the hinterland terminals was drawn up in the subsequently commissioned Phase II of the project. Based on the determined volume forecast a detailed business plan 2022-2031 was developed.