Coastal transport: Taking the load off for road transport

(Vietnam Logistics Review) Forms of transportation play important role in the development of the logistics sector. After being put into operation, the coastal transport route has shown its efficiency.

LOW COST

A long coast North-South enables good coastal transport: the load of a sea barge or a ferry boat of 1,000 tons is equal to that being carried 50 heavy trucks and the load of a vessel of 30,000 tons is equal to that being carried by 1,500 heavy trucks. And thus, coastal transport -a solution to take the load off for road transport- is under consideration.

There has been unbalancing in cargo transport structure among modals, badly affecting the market transport and consumers, enterprises and the economy. 70% of cargo currently been being transported by road has push transport fee higher, especially there are products which their price is 10 times higher being transported by road than being transported by North-South sea route. In addition to the state of “overloading”, traffic is on the alertand overloaded vehicles damage road infrastructures and pollute environmen

Coastal transport from North to South is easy, does not affect degrading transport infrastructures, and the fee is 60% lower. General Department of Statistics said it may cost hundreds of billion dong to build a kilometer of road infrastructure while it costs several billion for the dredging work. And it takes only 1/3 of the cost for a container being transported by waterway instead of being transported by road.

At the beginning of July, the Ministry of Transport announced the coastal route from Quang Ninh to Quang Binh, and others to be developed from Binh Thuan to Kien Giang and QuangBinh to Da Nang. The new coastal routes will facilitate the solutions for “overloading”. Mr. Dinh La Thang – the Minister of the Ministry of Transport- said: “We have invested too much in road transport and paid little attention to other forms of transport. We should develop local water way transport because of its geographical advantages, less investments and low cost.”

BENEFITS

PhD. Truong DinhHien–an expert on oceanic physics and offshore works – said coastal transport offers huge ability of transport, but costs less. An express railway needs USD 50bn, but 1/10 of it is enough to build a system of ports for coastal transport. Especially its capacity is over 100 times more than that of express ways or express railway.

In fact, the coastal transport route of Quang Ninh- Quang Binh has brought remarkable benefits after it is put into operation. The capacity for the first month was about 50,000 tons. According to reports from enterprises to the Maritime Administration, cost for road transport of a 20-feet container from Hai Phong to ThanhHoa is about VND10-12m, from Nghe An- Ha Tinh around VND 18-20m while it costs only VND 2.4m transporting from Hai Phong to ThanhHoa, and VND3-3.2mtransporting from Nghe An - Ha Tinh by water way.

After Quang Ninh - Quang Binh route comes to stable operation, the Maritime Administration will develop two more routes. Binh Thuan- Kien Giang will come first. As research, the needs for transport on the route is huge. The amount of cargo only in the Mekong Delta is around 51.5m tons pa. There is the need for transporting 2.1 million tons of materials and concrete serving the project of building a navigation way to Hau River and other supporting works in BR-VT. In BinhThuan; and the need for transporting material for Vinh Tan Thermal Power Plan. Therefore, it is necessary to open a coastal route from Binh Thuan - Kien Giang to take the load off for road transport.

However, for maximum effect, the route should be develop together with the development of logistics, warehousing and together with the construction of new small seaports in land and the use of existing deep-water sea ports.