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Mobility and Transport

North Sea-Mediterranean Core Network Corridor

Belfast – Dublin – Cork

Glasgow/Edinburgh – Liverpool/Manchester – Birmingham

Birmingham – Felixstowe/London/Southampton

London – Lille – Brussel/Bruxelles

Amsterdam – Rotterdam – Antwerp – Brussel/Bruxelles – Luxembourg

Luxembourg – Metz – Dijon – Macon – Lyon – Marseille

Luxembourg – Metz – Strasbourg – Basel

Antwerpen/Zeebrugge – Gent – Dunkerque/Lille – Paris

The North Sea-Mediterranean Corridor stretches from Ireland and the north of UK through the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg to the Mediterranean Sea in the south of France.

This multimodal corridor, comprising inland waterways in Benelux and France, aims not only at offering better multimodal services between the North Sea ports, the Maas, Rhine, Scheldt, Seine, Saone and Rhone river basins and the ports of Fos-sur-Mer and Marseille, but also at better interconnecting the British Isles with continental Europe.

Mr Péter Balázs is the European Coordinator for the North Sea-Mediterranean Core Network Corridor.

Map: North Sea-Mediterranean Corridor

The overall TEN-T corridor map

Description

The North Sea-Mediterranean Corridor stretches from Ireland and the north of the United Kingdom through The Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg to the Mediterranean Sea in the south of France. This multimodal corridor is encompassing a range of Priority Projects (PP 2, 13, 14, 26, 28 and 30). It aims not only at offering better multimodal services between the North Sea ports, along the Maas, Rhine, Scheldt, Seine, Saone and Rhone river basins but also better interconnecting the British Isles with continental Europe. The goals are reducing travel times and offering a larger modal choice and better services for passengers and freight.

Missing links

The main missing links on the “continental part” are the inland waterways bottlenecks and missing links between Seine and Scheldt as well as between the Rhine and the Rhone with the Canal Seine- Escaut as the most well-known project under development. The cross-border rail connections between Brussels – Luxembourg and Lyon need to be upgraded to be able to compete with road transport. The main missing links in the United Kingdom and Ireland are rail connections. In particular the connection between the Belfast-Dublin and the Dublin-Cork rail lines is being developed under the "DART" project.

Success Stories

1. High speed network London – Brussels – Paris and beyond

Europe’s first cross-border high speed passenger rail project (Priority Project 2, Paris – Brussels – Köln – Amsterdam – London), linking major cities in Belgium, France, Germany, The Netherlands and the United Kingdom became fully operational in 2010. This project, which includes major cross-border initiatives such as the Channel Tunnel, fostered major changes in the traffic flows between these economic centres.

An important growth in traffic occurred in parallel with a strong modal shift from air and road transport to rail, due to the important gain in time and frequency. The Eurostar attracts more than 60% of the traffic between London and Paris.

2. The eastern branch of the high speed line Rhine-Rhône

The full high speed line Rhine-Rhone project encloses three branches (east, west, south) that will connect the high speed network around Lyon to those of eastern France and with Switzerland and Germany. The first phase of the new eastern branch Dijon - Mulhouse (190 km) was opened on 11 December 2011. This significantly cut travel times: 3 hours 40 minutes from Strasbourg to Lyon instead of 4 hours 45 minutes and minus 75 minutes from Frankfurt to Lyon (5 hours 55 minutes). The financing of the second phase (50 km) was agreed on national level on 18 January 2012, the works are expected to start in 2014.

CEF: Pre-identified projects

Cork - Dublin - Belfast

Rail

Studies and works; Dublin Interconnector (DART);

Belfast

Port, multimodal connections

upgrading

Glasgow - Edinburgh

Rail

Upgrading

Manchester – Liverpool

Rail

Upgrading and electrification, including Northern Hub

Birmingham – Reading – Southampton

Rail

Upgrading of the freight line

Dublin, Cork, Southampton

Ports, Rail

Studies and works on port capacity, MoS and interconnections

Dunkerque

Port

Further development of multimodal platforms and interconnections

Calais - Paris

Rail

preliminary studies

Bruxelles/Brussel

Rail

studies and works (North-South connection for conventional and high-speed)

Felixstowe – Midlands

Rail, port, multimodal platforms

rail upgrading, interconnections port and multimodal platforms

Maas, inculding Maaswerken

IWW

Upgrading

Albertkanaal/ Canal Bocholt-Herentals

IWW

Upgrading

Rhine-Scheldt corridor: Volkeraklock and Kreekaklock, Krammerlock and Lock Hansweert

IWW

locks: studies ongoing

Terneuzen

Maritime

locks: studies ongoing; works

Terneuzen - Gent

IWW

studies, upgrading

Zeebrugge

Port

locks: studies, interconnections (studies and works)

Antwerp

Maritime, port, rail

locks: studies ongoing; port: interconnections (including second rail access to the port of Antwerp)

Rotterdam - Antwerp

Rail

upgrading rail freight line

Canal Seine Nord; Seine - Escaut

IWW

studies and works; upgrading including cross-border and multimodal connections

Dunkerque – Lille

IWW

studies ongoing

Antwerpen, Bruxelles/Brussels, Charleroi

IWW

upgrading

Waterways upgrade in Wallonia

IWW

studies, upgrading, intermodal connections

Brussel/Bruxelles - Luxembourg - Strasbourg

Rail

works ongoing

Antwerp – Namur - LUX border – FR border

Rail

upgrading of rail freight line

Strasbourg - Mulhouse - Basel

Rail

upgrading

Rail Connections Luxembourg - Dijon - Lyon (TGV Rhin - Rhône)

Rail

studies and works

Lyon

Rail

eastern bypass: studies and works

Canal Saône - Moselle/Rhin

IWW

preliminary studies ongoing

Rhône

IWW

upgrading

Port of Marseille-Fos

Port

interconnections and multimodal terminals

Lyon - Avignon - Port de Marseille - Fos

Rail

upgrading

Forum Meetings 2014

  • 4th Forum Meeting of the North Sea-Mediterranean Core Network Corridor, Brussels, 21 November 2014

Agenda

  • 1st meeting of the working group of the Regions along the North Sea-Mediterranean Corridor, Brussels, 20 November 2014

Agenda

  • 3rd Forum Meeting of the North Sea-Mediterranean Core Network Corridor, Brussels, 3 October 2014

Agenda

  • 1st meeting of the working group of the Ports along the North Sea-Mediterranean Corridor, Brussels, 2 October 2014

Agenda

  • 2nd Forum Meeting of the North Sea-Mediterranean Core Network Corridor, Brussels, 17th June 2014

Agenda

  • 1st Forum Meeting of the North Sea-Mediterranean Core Network Corridor, Brussels, 1st April 2014

Agenda