 |
 |
 |
| Project part-financed by the European Union |
On October 29th of this year, during the Regional Logistics Forum in Poznań, the European project CORELOG was presented. It aims, among other things, to explore opportunities for regional economic development and improve the situation on the roads of our continent, including Poland, by utilizing innovative concepts for organizing transport, primarily freight. At the meeting, which took place at the headquarters of the Institute of Logistics and Warehousing, representatives of the Marshal’s Office of the Greater Poland Voivodeship, the Poznań County Office, the Greater Poland Spatial Planning Office, the Greater Poland Chamber of Industry and Commerce, the Greater Poland Chamber of Agriculture and Industry, the Association of Municipalities and Counties of Greater Poland, and the Greater Poland Regional Development Agency familiarized themselves with the project’s assumptions and the possibilities for its implementation in Greater Poland, utilizing active cooperation between public administration, scientific units, and private enterprises, especially those operating in the transport sector.
The CORELOG (COordinated REgional LOGistics) project involves regions and institutions from: Austria (Styrian authorities and Austrian Mobility Research FGM-AMOR), Greece (Heraklion Port Authority SA and Thessaloniki University), Poland (Institute of Logistics and Warehousing), Slovenia (University of Maribor), Hungary (Szecheny Istvan University), and Italy (Department of Transport and Logistics Planning of the Emilia Romagna Region authorities and Price Waterhouse Coopers). The strategic goals of the CORELOG project are:
– understanding the main driving forces behind changes in supply chain management strategies in companies in the CADSES region (see map) and their impact on goods flows in the region,
– understanding the role of various institutions at the national, regional, and local levels and the actions they take that influence the logistical development of the region,
– promoting logistical cooperation and the integration of operators and enterprises in the local SME environment,
– disseminating knowledge about best logistical practices,
– creating long-term sustainable logistical solutions in terms of organization and technology that involve private operators collaborating in logistical management at the regional and interregional levels,
– planning and implementing pilot projects and evaluating the possibilities for their replication.
Presenting the possibilities of using logistics in the economic development of the region, Piotr Nowak (ILiM) emphasized, among other things, that transport costs in the EU currently account for 1.5% of GDP, while logistics costs are estimated at 12% of costs in the public sector and 20% of trade costs. At the same time, it is predicted that by 2020, transport will increase by 50% compared to the current state, and by 2050, it will double. Already, air pollution related to freight transport is estimated at 31%, so one can imagine what it will be like in 43 years. That is why it is so important to rationalize logistics organization and reduce the number of vehicles on the roads (e.g., by increasing vehicle load levels), while public administration must use the opportunities that logistics provides, also in terms of developing production systems and increasing the attractiveness of the territory it manages. P. Nowak also presented the achievements made in the northern Italian province of Emilia Romagna, as well as the assumptions of a regional transport development strategy that could also be implemented here. They are characterized by the use of the scenario method for forecasting; describing guidelines for regional transport policy; breaking down general goals into specific actions in the area of transport logistics development in the region; integrating actions supporting the competitiveness of the regional production system with a sustainable transport system; and defining guidelines and tasks for organizing the transport and logistics system of the region at various levels of public administration.
The idea of creating the Greater Poland Logistics Cluster was presented by Leszek Andrzejewski (ILiM), pointing out such attributes of this venture as: a purposeful association of enterprises; regional concentration of SME enterprises from a specialized industry; their vertical and horizontal integration; the creation of pro-innovation attitudes, as well as a tendency for competitors to find areas of cooperation. The cluster would be created to design common visions, missions, and marketing strategies, coordinate capital acquisition policies, and shape relations with local authorities, the political environment, local government, and society.
Meanwhile, Ireneusz Fechner, Marcin Hajdul, and Maciej Tumasz (ILiM) prepared a presentation devoted to the rationalization of corporate transport systems as an opportunity to improve the road situation in the region through the application of the concept of co-modality. Co-modality is the efficient use of different modes of transport, both independently and in combination with others, which leads to the optimal and sustainable use of existing resources. During the presentation, it was pointed out that the transport time for goods via intermodal transport is longer than in the case of road transport; access for private rail carriers to existing container terminals belonging to PKP CARGO SA is difficult; there is a lack of a clearly defined policy regarding the development of freight transport in Greater Poland; road managers do not take into account the needs of connecting container terminals to the road network in their construction and modernization plans (a lack of coordination in this area is visible); and there is a lack of concepts for building publicly accessible container terminals and container transshipment points in Greater Poland. Therefore, as part of, among other things, the revitalization of rail freight transport, the authors propose a concept for building a network of container terminals, assuming the use of two types of intermodal transport hubs for this purpose: container terminals (CT) – which are permanent hubs meeting the basic technical requirements for this type of facility, and container transshipment points (CTP) – which are facilities created on an ad-hoc basis for the needs of specific users. The conclusions that can be drawn after analyzing the problem, in their opinion, can be formulated as follows: initiatives aimed at minimizing transport costs undertaken by manufacturing and/or service companies have a positive impact on the road situation in the region, as they reduce the number of heavy goods vehicles on the roads; unfortunately, only companies with large capital are able to purchase appropriate IT tools or use the services of specialized consultants to analyze and rationalize the organization of logistics processes; there is an urgent need to define a regional policy regarding freight transport. Furthermore, the vast majority of surveyed companies (almost 80% of over 100) do not feel support from public administration in the development of logistics in the Greater Poland region. However, based on the results of a survey conducted among employees of County Offices in Greater Poland, public authority employees also do not possess optimal knowledge in the field of planning logistics processes.