Baltic-Adriatic Forum in Budapest Highlights RFC Amber

The Baltic-Adriatic Forum is an event organized by the Association of Polish Regions of the Baltic-Adriatic Transport Corridor. For the 10th Forum the association chose Budapest as place of the event, reflecting the envisaged joining of Hungary to the future European Transport Corridor (ETC) Baltic-Adriatic and the close cooperation between Poland and Hungary. Partners of the meeting, which took place in the immediate vicinity of the Hungarian Parliament Building, were the Consulate General of Hungary in Gdansk and the Urban Mobility Initiative of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT).
Leszek Bonna, President of the Association, opened the first meeting, and Anne Jensen, European Coordinator of the Baltic-Adriatic Core Network Corridor, gave the welcome address. Csaba Latorcai, Hungarian Parliamentary State Secretary and Deputy Minister for Regional Development from the Prime Minister’s Office and Dr. Loránd Boi, Hungarian State Secretary responsible for Transport Strategy also spoke. 

Decarbonisation in freight and urban transport were the topics of the first roundtable. In this roundtable, András Nyíri, Director of Operations at Rail Cargo Hungaria and also Spokesperson of the RFC AMBER Railway and Terminal Advisory Groups, participated and spoke about initiatives by his company to further improve the environmental performance of rail transport and discussed prospects of new traction energy sources and propulsion solutions for freight locomotives; he also highlighted the challenges of high electric traction energy prices for the competitiveness of environmentally-friendly rail transport.

Siamak Jalali from the EU Commission, DG MOVE, introduced the second round table on Hungary’s role in TEN-T transport corridors and international supply chains, with a presentation about the on-going revision of the TEN-T Regulation, an interview with Anne Jensen, European Coordinator for the Baltic Adriatic Corridor, and introductory speeches by Dr. Gerhard Troche, Managing Director of RFC AMBER, and by Jakub Piotrowicz from the Maritime University of Gdynia.

Dr. Troche presented the genesis of RFC AMBER, explaining the ambition to close gaps in the network of rail freight corridors and addressing freight flows in the Baltic-Adriatic transport axis. He also highlighted important achievements, like the provision of international train paths for longer freight trains and presented the positive traffic development on the Western Hungarian North-South axis after electrification of the route, making it today one of RFC AMBER’s most dynamically growing corridor sections and Hungary’s second-most important rail freight route in terms of traffic volume. He also emphasized the close cooperation with RFC Baltic-Adriatic with a view on the future setting-up of the ETC Baltic-Adriatic.

In the Roundtable discussion, Dr. Troche highlighted that a key contribution of RFC AMBER to the future ETC Baltic-Adriatic will be additional capacity, increased resilience by providing alternative routes and a widening of the geographical market served by the new ETC.

The Forum concluded with a further Roundtable focusing on intelligent Urban Transport and its role in the TEN-T network, highlighting in particular the role of Urban Nodes in the transport system. On the day after the Forum, participants had the opportunity to join a study visit to the Port of Győr-Gönyű at the Danube in Western Hungary.