The CAREX project, at the crossroads

A decisive meeting on the future of the “CAREX” project was held on the 24th of November 2011.

The purpose of this meeting, which brought together the main political, economic and industrial players in the affair, was to provide the various partners present with the necessary information for making decisions about their respective commitments: investors, operators, logistics operators, customers etc.

Two market surveys were awaited with particular anticipation:

The aim of one of them, commissioned by the “EURO CAREX” federation and carried out by the Belgian ETS market research company, was to consolidate the heterogeneous flow data produced by the previous surveys carried out on the different CAREX sites known as Railports (Amsterdam, Liège, London, Lyon and Roissy) in order to extract from them the traffics potentially transferable to the “CAREX” service. This extremely complicated exercise is currently being completed and should result, in a second phase, in the drawing up of a transport plan.

The other survey, carried out by the Frost and Sullivan market research company and commissioned by a consortium made up of SNCF Geodis and Eurotunnel, demonstrated that night flight flows are the essential basis for the “CAREX” project. These flows are mainly made up of high value added “express” flows with high qualitative requirements, particularly in terms of adhering to transport deadlines.

The missing flows are there, the Railports are making inventories of the potential markets locally and the GEC (European Shippers Group: associations of air freight carriers, partners of “CAREX”) has started procedures with the European and German authorities in order to give the project the European dimension that it claims, find new flows and confirm their commitment, as industrial companies, to multimode transport.

CAREX is 5 years old. The railports involved in the project’s first phase have done remarkable work and many of them are ready to lay the foundation stone. 2012 will be rich in events that may, with a little help from the crisis, mould the political support essential for the realisation of the affair.

All of the lights are on green at the crossroads; all we have to do now is put some (clean) fuel in the tank and press the accelerator.