Serbia will soon get the Association for Combined Transport “Srbija kombi”, with the major share of “Serbian Railways”. The need for this kind of association exists for several years, particularly since the integration process of Serbian economy into European economic streams has begun. Actually, it is a type of ticket to European market of transport services, since the combined transport became the only strategic solution for global problems in freight traffic, – it was stated today by the representatives of “Serbian Railways”, at the Fair of Logistics in Novi Sad.

Combined transport would include exclusively the kinds of goods convenient for that transport mode or the goods where combined transport is economically justified, while the transport of mass bulk and liquid goods has not been financially rational jet.

There is a great need for this association in Serbia, since our country is one of the rear countries in Europe, which hasn’t got developed modern transport technologies, nor a defined network of container terminals and freight-transport centers. On the other hand, favorable geographic and traffic position of Serbia offers great chances and possibilities to include our transport into the mentioned processes, where the special accent is being put to the creation of intermodal terminals and freight-transport centers.

To be precise, combined transport reduces carriage charges, and at the same times the price of transported goods, which all together draws the goods previously transported by road. Consequently, “Serbian Railways” will have the opportunity to increase their share on transport market, and the economy will gain fast and sensible freight door-to-door transport.

There have been made several practical steps towards the foundation of “kombi-association” in Serbia so far. Based on the agreement between the Ministry of Capital Investment, Serbian Chamber of Commerce and Director General of “Serbian Railways”, at the beginning of this year has been found a work group for the examination of the conditions for the creation of the Association, as the basis of future development of combined transport in Serbia. They agreed that the best solution was to have the association “Srbija-kombi” with limited responsibilities, formed by 5 or 6 founders, where “Serbian Railways” would have at least 51 percent shares.

The first transport of that kind operated on our railways by now. Precisely, special international railway composition for the transport of road vehicles RO-LA, for the first time operated on Serbian railways in September, on the route Halkali (Turkey) – Vels (Austria). The composition was consisted of 20 special wagons, with the same number of loaded semi-trailer trains. The trains run this 2.000 kilometers long route in 70 hours. According to the plan, till the end of 2006, one pair of RO-LA trains should run through Serbia every week. Currently they are performing the analysis of the achieved effects in this mode of transport, as well as the agreement on the organization of these trains in 2007.