Container Terminal Athus

TML prepared a grant file for Container Terminal Athus to obtain European grants for the expansion of their infrastructure. This included a social cost-benefit analysis to evaluate the impact on congestion, time savings, emissions, accidents, and noise pollution.

Container Terminal Athus (CTA) provides logistics and land transport of maritime containers between North Sea ports and Saarland, Lorraine and Luxembourg. CTA plans to expand and adapt its infrastructure to transport a greater number of containers by rail. It is eligible for European subsidies for this purpose. TML prepared a full grant dossier for CTA, including a social cost-benefit analysis (SCBA), under the European Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) Transport programme.

This project resulted in a complete and qualitative grant file for the CEF programme. Accompanying the subsidy dossier was a report containing the results of the SCBA. In it, we showed the social costs and benefits of the terminal expansion. Among other things, we looked at effects on congestion, time gains, emissions, accidents, and noise pollution.

The SCBA found that the terminal's modification and expansion will provide significant social added value. In short, the project will improve service levels for transporters and encourage a modal shift. As a result, all terminals in southern Europe connected to North Sea ports will benefit from more frequent schedules and shorter transit times, making them more competitive with road transport. Over the lifetime of the project, this will lead to the avoidance of 2.1 billion truck kilometres. The expected growth in freight transport will be absorbed by rail, traffic accidents will be reduced due to fewer trucks on the road, the terminal will become climate-proof, and we will avoid the emission of more than 500,000 tonnes of greenhouse gases.

TML has strong expertise in preparing CEF files. We have previously carried out several SCBAs for clients' CEF applications and also guided the client in this matter.