Extended gateways: a pro-active approach towards sustainable logistics – the case of Flanders

Extended gateways, a concept introduced by Van Breedam and Vannieuwenhuyse in 2006, is linked to the evolution observed in transport geography literature where there is a shift from focus on the gateways towards focus on the hinterland. The extended gateways under consideration are evolving from the same drivers as the rail-oriented extended gates or dry ports, but the concept is however broader in the possible use of different transport modes (also barge and even road transport) to connect the gateway with the extended gateway (also called logistical hotspot). In addition also airports are included as gateways to a region. These extended gateways are thus prime locations in the hinterland, which reinforce the international gateways -seaports and airports-of a region.
The idea of a win-win situation for gateway and hinterland simultaneously is that the extended gateways on the one hand will reinforce the primary gateways by reducing congestion at the gates and by offering the clients of the port a lower total logistics costs then in other ports. On the other hand the logistics hotspots are reinforced by the strong connection with the port and by the concentration of logistics activities which will create agglomeration effects. By the concentration of activities also more environmental means of transport can be used through bundling freight flows and even if road transport is used it can be optimized by collaboration with the other shippers in the hotspot. So the decrease of total logistics costs goes hand in hand with a decrease in external costs, resulting in an improvement of the sustainability of the logistics sector. This paper proposes a pro-active approach to make use of this evolution and to create substantial benefits for the region involved. Regional and local authorities should not stand back and watch the evolution but should play an active role in it by identifying the logistical hotspots in the hinterland and actively direct investments towards them. In this paper the methodology to do so, is provided.
Three important aspects regarding the identification of logistics hotspots in a region are: developing a multimodal approach, improving partnerships among shippers and searching for innovation in logistics. Having a dense transport network is an abundantly clear advantage but capacity on a network is always restricted to a certain level, increasing the need for a multimodal approach when congestion levels on a particular network (in casu road) start to rise. Encouraging collaboration is a second challenge. Besides the infrastructure and the organisation on a macro-economic scale, developing an extended gateway requires also efforts on company level. Better collaboration among companies in the different steps in the supply chain can lead to cost reductions. Besides an integrated infrastructure providing enough capacity and an optimal organisation and utilization of that capacity through collaboration, a third challenge to develop a competitive extended gateway is innovation. The concept of the Extended Gateway strongly depends on an efficient multimodal transport system since every transhipment creates friction costs so innovative improvements in transhipment could further create opportunities for inter- or multimodal transport, and thus create more opportunities for the extended gateway.
In order to identify the location of logistics activities in the hinterland and the potential of the Flemish extended gateways a bottom up approach was implemented. In each of the five provinces of Flanders a study was launched, conducted according to an identical four phased methodology: identification of the logistics "production" structure of the province, benchmarking with international logistic top locations, determination of the logistics potential per province and development of a provincial "business plan" focussing on five key areas. Along with the results, this methodology will be explained in more detail in the paper.