Transfer of management powers at the Leixões Railway Terminal from IP to APDL
The Administration of the Ports of Douro, Leixões and Viana do Castelo, SA., will manage the Leixões Rail Freight Terminal, similar to what is already happening with the Guarda Terminal. The decision, approved today by the Council of Ministers, grants the transfer of powers from IP (Infraestruturas de Portugal) to APDL, allowing a positive impact at an economic and social level, as well as the creation of another decisive step towards carbon neutrality.
For Nuno Araújo, the integration of the terminal in the jurisdiction of APDL “will make it possible to increase the hinterland, increase the railway quota, increase the goods handled through the Port of Leixões, increase the solutions for the logistics chain (with evident gains both in speed and in skills) , and reduce the environmental footprint, which is an important contribution to the decarbonization of the economy and compliance with the goals that the country has set itself, both in terms of the Strategy for Sustainable and Intelligent Mobility (of the European Union) which provides for the doubling of transport rail freight and tripling the number of high-speed passengers, as well as the commitment to the scope of the Roadmap for Carbon Neutrality”.
The Chairman of the Board of Directors of APDL considers the
connection between maritime and rail transport decisive for efficiency
of the response of the Port of Leixões to its customers, “allowing a
evident improvement of processes, through greater agility,
simplification and optimization of cargo movement to and from
Leixões, and an evident decrease in the asymmetries of the territory”.
For Nuno Araújo, another step is created in line with the strategy of
APDL, which provides for “the reinforcement of intermobility and the increase of the
installed of its port infrastructures”.
At the moment, in Leixões, a container that comes by rail to transport
seafarer has to leave the railroad, enter the urban area, and go through the 18
kilometers from the entrance to the Port of Leixões. Now, the management of this
terminal, which will take place on the 1st working day after 6 months have elapsed from the enactment
of the diploma, will make it possible to create a network connecting the rest of the country and Europe.
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