Two years in the queue

The problem of multi-hour truck queues at Russian-Latvian border is not likely to be solved within two or three years. Despite the efforts of Russia and EU members, which try to take the situation under control, the carriers are to take into account about two additional days when planning their entry to Russia.

“At least two or three years are required to solve the problem of truck lines at Russian-Latvian border,” Latvia’s Prime Minister Aigars Kalvitis said in an interview on LNT TV channel. According to Kalvitis, besides implementation of all border infrastructure projects it is necessary to sign an agreement with Russia on border modernization within Russia’s territory. “We cannot ban transit flow via Latvia. It is just not possible. It is their right to cross Latvia, as well as our trucks go via the territories of other states. “The only thing we can undertake is to join our efforts and to survive a couple of tough years,” the Prime Minister said.

EU's competence

According to the official statement made by Latvia’a Ministries of Communications, Finance and Foreign Affairs a week ago, the project of Russian-Latvian border infrastructure modernization and development in 2007-2010 will cost $603.2 million including $301.7 million to be provided by the EU Cohesion Fund. Latvia’s investment is to make only $255 million. Besides, it is planned to attract other investors. The project provisions reconstruction of existing highways as well as construction of new ones, modernization of existing border crossing points, construction of near-border parking lots for truck drivers. However, the Ministry of Communications is sure the project implementation is not to decrease the queues as cargo traffic between Russia and EU continues to grow.

Russia’s Transport Minister Igor Levitin says the neighbors are right. When discussing the issue of border traffic jam, Levitin noticed the problem of queues is the problem of European Union. Hence the solution is to be sought, first of all, by corresponding authorities of EU. Levitin believes the system of advance electronic declaration of cargo to be introduced for haulers is capable of partial diffusion of the crises. 

Logistics arrangements

The Ministry of Transport is willing to consider construction of logistics centers at Russia’s border with EU within the framework of the logistics group of Russia-EU Transport Dialogue. As the press center of the RF Transport Ministry states, the idea was declared by Igor Levitin at the working meeting with Matias Placek, President of Federal State of Brandenburg. “It could be a good project joining the efforts of Russia, Germany and other EU members. Its implementation will enable us to solve the problem of traffic jams at Russia’s border. We are ready to consider the issue within the framework of the logistics group of Russia-EU Transport Dialogue,” Levitin said.  The Minister appreciated Russia-Germany partnership and expressed interest in further cooperation with Brandenburg Logistics Center. “We still have no modern logistics system in Russia while economic potential permanently developing in our country exceeds the capacity of our transport network. To solve the problem we plan to build large logistics complexes in Moscow region and St. Petersburg as well as on the basis of transport hubs in Novorossijk, Murmansk, Ekaterinburg and Nakhodka,” Levitin noticed. He also said that in order to implement the above plans the Ministry of Transport started the work on a Conception for development of the RF multimodal logistics centers.

Meanwhile, railway carriers tried to diffuse the situation at the Russian-Latvian border. On August 22, the first container train No1231/1232 left Baltic Container Terminal of the port of Riga for Kuntsevo-2 station in Moscow. According to information provided by the press center of TransContainer OJSC, it will deliver transit cargoes, coming from China via Riga, to the Russian capital. Later on, empty boxes will return to the Port of Riga. The total volume of the containers will be of 82 TEUs, transit time – 48 hours.

According to the Deputy Director of the Center of Trade and Intermodal Carriages at the JSC TransContainer, Pavel Sokolov, this is a joint project of the JSC TransContainer and State JSC Latvian Railways (Latvijas dzelzcelš – LDz), for which JSC Russian Railways and JSC TransContainer developed specific route schedule.“The train appeared due to the increased demand for the transshipment of the transit cargoes through the ports of the Baltic States, as well as the huge congestions at the port of St. Petersburg, and unstable services of the road carriers, transporting goods across the border. We can offer on this direction stable and reliable services with guar-anteed delivery time,” – pointed out Mr. Sokolov.

Operator of the new route is Finnish group of companies Containerships. According to Sigurion Markusson, Managing Director of Containerships GC, the fundamental distinction of the new rout is specialization on containers earlier delivered by road. It is planned, that with the active support from the LDz Cargo, in the nearest future the train will make weekly services between Moscow and Riga. According to Mr. Sokolov, there are already cargoes at the Port of Riga, which will be enough for three full runs of the new train. By the end of the year it is planned to carry about 3,000 TEU on the route.  Besides, TransContainer currently considers the possibility to launch similar train from the port of Liepaja.

On traffic jams

The problem of multi-kilometer truck queues at Russian-Latvian border emerged in August 2006. The maximal congestion at the border was registered on May 30, 2007, when 1,900 trucks accumulated at the border. Currently the line numbers some 1,200 – 1,400 trucks while the capacity of Terekhpvo-Burchki check-point (Sebezh customs) is about 430-450 vehicles per day. It is 2.5 times the design capacity of the check-point.

Sebezh customs officers attribute the congestion to limited cargo flow via Byelorussian customs, Pskov-based information agency states. Byelorussia imposes certain temperature limits (+25С). If the temperature is higher the trucks are forbidden to cross the country’s territory. Besides, 70-80% of Lithuanian and Polish truck drivers prefer Russia-Latvia direction as transport permits are easier to be received there. In its turn, Igor Vlasenko, head of the RF North-Western Customs, thinks the jam is caused by trade boom in the port of Riga. Vlasenko is sure the queues will only continue to grow with the peak falling on October-November when people return from vacations and cargo flow resumes.