VTG and Lotras expand the offer of service of intermodal transport in Italy - innovation and sustainability transport and handling of goods

Thanks to the use of the Technology of movement and transport RoadRailLink (R2L), already in use in other European train paths, VTG in collaboration with Lotras, have created the first experimental train that is going to travel from Brindisi to the intermodal freight Terminal in Villa Selva (Forlì). The intermodal offer is destined to grow up rapidly and further links are expected with two new relations from Lecce and Incoronata (near Foggia), thanks to the collaboration with different freight road transport.

“This is a great step forward. Now it possible to use the crane to lift the non-craneable semitrailer, making this way more transport by the train”, Mr Guido Gazzola, Person in Charge of the second Italian Headquarter of VTG Rail Europe GmbH. “By the technology R2L, we are actively moving the transports from the road to the railway. This new activity might move from the road to the railway up to 15,000 trucks per year, per relation, with considerable reduction in CO2 emissions, having positive effects also on the traffic as it reduces gridlocks.  

“A strategic operation, Mr Armando de Girolamo, Lotras Sole Administrator said, because it strengthens the role of Apulia and Southern Italy in the logistic sector and the national transport, getting near the South to the North Europe; the innovation and intermodality, furthermore, by the direct partnership with the truck drivers show the will and transverse contribution of the sector to methodologies of sustainable transport and attentive to the objectives of the safeguard of the environment and security.       

An innovative solution for the intermonal transport

The innovative solution to transport uncraneable semitrailers combined transport is a countertrend answer to what happen in Italy like in the rest of Europe, where the greatest part of the goods is transported by different types of trailers on the road, with a very low percentage, about 5%, suitable for the intermodal transport. The R2L technology of movement and transport, instead, provides an efficient way to move uncraneable semitrailers of any type, and also semitrailers which could not be transported by rail up to that moment, strengthening in this way furtherly the modal movement. The vector R2L, in fact, does not need of ramps or other devises; semitrailer, in fact, can be easily lifted to the benefit of the different terminal operations, with very rapid times of loading, few minutes for each semitrailer, and with absolute security and precision thanks to the support of laser and digital tools for the calculation of measures and distances.     

After the test, the service is expected to be activated by Autumn with 6 weekly departures from Brindisi with destination for Villa Selva and 6 in direction Norht-South.

The initiative was illustrated in the last weeks to Vice Minister of Infrastructure and Sustainable Mobility, Ms Teresa Bellanova, which showed a concrete interest and support for this entrepreneurial partnership initiative, paying attention constantly for the sector of logistics and freight transport and, in particular, for the needs of road transport sector Southern Apulia. 

Information about VTG:

Based in Hamburg, VTG Aktiengesellsschaft owns of a global asset and a logistic society with a strong attention to the railway world. In addition to the rent of railway wagons and tank containers, it supplies also multimodal logistic services and integrated digital solution. The fleet of the Company includes about 97,000 freight wagons – mainly tank wagons, intermodal wagons, standard freight wagons and wagons with sliding walls – and about 9,000 tank containers.

This range of services diversified offers to VTG’s clients a solid platform for the international freight transport, according to which the company develops logistic custom-made solutions for any sector. Over several year, VTG gained experience along the entire transport chain, an experience that is now accompanied by a smart technology. The Group, furthermore, joins a reach experience with a specialistic knowledge of the liquid freight transport and in particular delicate. Its clients include a lot of leading enterprises related to chemical, oil, cars and paper, agricultural and practically any other sector.  

VTG reported in the 2020 fiscal year a turnover of 1,218 million euros and an operative revenue (EBITDA) of 492 million euros. The branches and associates of the society based in Hamburg give it a considerable influence in Europe, North America, Russia and Asia. From 31st December 2020, VTG employed about 2,100 people all over the World.

Information on LOTRAS:

The movement of goods through the national and international railway network meets efficiently to the growing needs of ecosustainability and is also a way to relaunch the competitiveness of products and companies in a transport vision inspired to the intermodality. These are the main values Lotras’s mission – founded in 1998 by Mr Armando de Girolamo and his sons Nazario and Domenico – which is today a successful entrepreneurial reality in Italy and Europe for the freight multimodal transport of goods, with absolute leadership in the transport of liquid foods.

In the last years, furthermore, Lotras conveys the sudden necessity of the industrial and manufacturing system, needs strengthened by the pandemic emergency began in 2020, forced by the new economic background to optimise furtherly the costs of production, among which those for the freight transport.  

This is because Lotras’s choice to keep investing by developing the most suitable solutions for the different branches. Investments and organisational specific models, so, that finds the proof in the Railway terminal Lotras of Foggia and Forlì and in logistic platform of Faenza, infrastructures of reference daily linked to a network of international train paths in order to ensure efficient, prompt answers and link the productive, commercial companies of Southern Italy with those of Adriatic and Tyrrhenian areas and from this areas to Middle-North Europe, with a movement of the goods made in complete safety and respecting the EU and national norms of the different Countries.