The Port of Rotterdam is continuing to develop new facilities for the waterborne transportation of containers, including short sea and inland river shipping, and in the process taking thousands of containerized truckloads off Dutch highways and reducing fuel consumption and emissions. While the United States is struggling to make short sea and marine highway shipping workable, the Port of Rotterdam continues to encourage waterborne transportation to complement mega-container ship arrivals at mega-container terminals. Sjaak Poppe, a Port of Rotterdam press officer says the Port of Rotterdam has stimulated the modal shift of moving cargo away from road transport and onto rail and water:  “We stimulate barge and rail (transportation) in two ways: building infrastructure and in contracts with the terminal operators [mainly when making the land lease contracts].  We [Port of Rotterdam] agreed with them to have a gradual shift in the way the containers are shipped from their terminals to the hinterland in the next two decades.” The German Hinterland Around 40% of Rotterdam containers are transported on inland waterway vessels, mostly on the Rhine River going east to Germany and other Central European destinations. The Port of Rotterdam has encouraged partnerships to develop mini-terminals along rivers to support more riverborne traffic. For example, the Port of Rotterdam’s efforts are to increase river transportation to German state end users such as in Rhineland-Palatinate: “Every year 17 million tonnes of cargo travels between the Port of Rotterdam and Rhineland-Palatinate, mainly by inland vessel. That is 15% of all cargo between Rotterdam and Germany. Eight terminals in the state are already affiliated with InlandLinks, the Rotterdam hinterland network for containers. In the past years the Port of Rotterdam Authority has endeavored to increase the connections of the four German states along the Rhine with each other and with the Port of Rotterdam. They have shared interests, such as the shift in cargo to rail and inland shipping and investments in infrastructure. Strong ties with the Rhine corridor will also give the Port of Rotterdam a firmer position...” “The container flow will more than double in the next 20 years. Efficient logistic concepts and adequate infrastructure are required to handle this logistically. Our aim is for 65% of the containers to be transported via rail and inland waterways in 2035; currently that is around 52%. A driving factor is the reduction of environmental impact due to emissions, particulate matter and noise. Stimulating the use of LNG in freight transport is a priority,” according to Emile Hoogsteden, director of Containers, Breakbulk and Logistics at the Port Authority.” The Port continues to see more ocean-going feeder ship services from Rotterdam to smaller ports. For example, Evergreen Line is to operate its own feeder link between Rotterdam and Dublin as part of a local network revamp that includes an upgrade of its Liverpool service. Evergreen Line will run its own independent service on a weekly shuttle basis between its hub in Rotterdam and Dublin. It will also start a slot exchange arrangement with common carrier X-PRESS feeders on its weekly Dublin service from Rotterdam. At the Maasvlakte 1 complex, Poppe noted, “high utilization rate at the European Combined Terminal (ECT) Delta Terminal, the largest terminal there, has resulted in delays for inland waterway vessels of 3-4 days while the big ocean ships load and unload. Steps are being taken to ease these delays.” Poppe pointed out the difference in the US model to that of Rotterdam. In North America warehouses and distribution centers are often located miles away from the ports in order to capitalize on access to cheap land and labor, whereas in Rotterdam the DCs are now being located right next to container terminals in the new Maasvlakte 2 complex. Thus, shippers will save on transportation costs and repacking ocean containers into truckloads. Trucking emissions will also be less. “We located an area to accommodate warehouses and distribution centers at Maasvlakte 2, in order to accommodate the container ships that are offloading containers for distribution by inland waterway vessels that go by the Rhine River to Germany and other destinations to the East,” Poppe said. “At the same time, we also have a need for repacking containers for feeder ships and short sea ships that are going from Rotterdam to Ireland, the UK and Scandinavia… We have ships coming from Asia that drop off their cargoes in Rotterdam for transportation to the United States.  It used to be that we had European distribution centers in eastern Holland that took containers and shipped them to Germany and other European destinations. Today, we are taking advantage of new space that has been made available for distribution centers next to the container terminals. This will allow the distribution business to reduce trucking costs by interacting with coastal, inland shipping plus improve rail service from the Port... Today, at Maasvlakte 2, we are returning to the older model of bringing the warehouse and the piers closer together. The result is less trucking, less fuel consumption, less emissions and less traffic jams on Rotterdam highways.”