Reinforcing Eastern Finland-Estonia Transport Corridor

Programme 2014 - 2020 INTERREG V-A Finland - Estonia - Latvia - Sweden (Central Baltic)

Date of latest update: 2023-11-11

Description

Description (EN):

The heavy vehicle traffic (trucks and trailers) on ferries over the Gulf of Finland has been ever increasing and the trend is estimated to continue. There are two ferry routes between Finland and Estonia (Helsinki-Tallin and Hanko-Paldiski). Remarkable part of this heavy vehicle traffic takes place between Eastern Finland and Eastern Estonia. Currently the trucks need to drive via Helsinki-Tallinn, or via Hanko-Paldiski, even longer route. The best solution to make the Eastern Finland - Eastern Estonia corridor more efficient is to establish a ferry connection between ports of Loviisa (FI) and Kunda (EE). This connection is practically in direct north-south axis (54 seamiles). Moreover, there is no Russian territorial water in between. The project aims at reinforcing the establishment of Eastern Finland-Eastern-Estonia transport corridor. The project outputs are focused mainly on concrete measures to support Loviisa-Kunda ferry connection. This includes business model(s) with potential shipping companies, port operative and investment plans, roadmap to comply the needed licences and regulatory requirements, best practise transferred from similar connections in the BSR, ferry scheduling and route option plans, marketing plan and events to promote the connection. Furthermore the cargo potential of the corridor is analysed and the impact of the developed corridor is verified (reduced travel time, volume using the corridor and Loviisa-Kunda connection). In addition to the faster and more fluid transports between eastern parts of Finland and Estonia there are other beneficiaries of the activated transport corridor. The traffic to/from Eastern Finland that uses Via Baltica would benefit from more direct connections as well. Another major advantage is relieving the pressure of growing heavy traffic (traffic jams, emissions, noise, dust) in the city centres of Tallinn and Helsinki. The decreased mileage in transports means also less CO2 emissions.

Achievements (EN):

REFEC focused on supporting the establishment of the Loviisa – Kunda ferry connection: The REFEC project aimed at reinforcing the establishment of the Eastern Finland – Estonia transport corridor by focusing on concrete measures to support the establishment of the Loviisa – Kunda ferry connection. Firstly, the project produced an analysis on the freight potential that would use the Loviisa – Kunda ferry connection. Based on this information, concrete activities to support the connection establishment was carried out, such as port operative and master plans, benchmarking of best practises from similar connections in the Baltic Sea Region to be transferred to the Loviisa – Kunda connection as well as contacting potential shipping companies with ferry scheduling and route option plans. In addition, a roadmap to comply with the needed licences and regulatory requirements was created in the project. Furthermore, impact assessment of the developed corridor was carried out. Based on the assessment, Loviisa-Kunda ferry connection would provide shorter mileage and travel time compared to the routes via the existing ferry services. Regarding environmental impact, the Loviisa-Kunda route CO2 emissions would be in line with the mileage observations. Another environmentally positive issue would be that the new ferry line would partly relieve heavy traffic in the capital regions. A new ferry line would also stimulate regional development in both countries by creating more jobs and investments to the region close to ports. List of all publications is available here: www.refec.fi/publications

Website: http://centralbaltic.eu/

Expected Results (EN): R3.3. Transport flows of goods

Expected Outputs (EN):

The overall result of the project is the development of the Eastern Finland – Eastern Estonia transport corridor and its two nodes: ports of Loviisa and Kunda. In short, the project results contribute to the eventual establishment of the ferry connection between Loviisa and Kunda. The project carries out activities that are needed to initiate the ferry service. This is in line with the programme result indicator since it addresses directly reduced travel time of the cargo in the transport corridor in the focus. The results can be grouped in three entities: 1. Detailed figures on the freigth potential (number of units, tons) that will use the corridor nodes i.e Loviisa-Kunda ferry connection. The future estimates of figures are also given. This result is needed as an input for actual plans and measures for the ferry connection in phase 2. 2. The concrete measures to support the establishement of Loviisa-Kunda connection. - business model(s) with contacted potential shipping companies, - port operative plans, - port investment plan, - port operator related plans (operations, investments, work force), - roadmap to comply the needed licenses and regulatory requirements, - best practise transferred from similar connections in the BSR, - scheduling and route option plans for the service, - marketing plan and events to promote the connection. 3. The impact assessment of the created transport corridor. The benefits of the improved transport corridor are verified. In addition to reduced travel time in the improved corridor the transferred cargo volumes are calculated. This forms a basis to calculate the impact to CO2 emission decrease. The socio-economic impact is covered as well (employment and turnover in the transport corridor area). All three entities are important but the main focus is on the results in entity 2 which contributes directly to establisment of the corridor and its enabler - the ferry connection Loviisa-Kunda. This is leading to reduced travel time of cargo.

Thematic information

Logistics and freight transport Improving transport connections

Specific Objective: Improved transport flows of people and goods

Thematic Objective: (07) promoting sustainable transport and removing bottlenecks in key network infrastructures by:

Investment Priority: (07c) developing and improving environmentally-friendly (including low-noise) and low-carbon transport systems, including inland waterways and maritime transport, ports, multimodal links and airport infrastructure, in order to promote sustainable regional and local mobility

Partners (5)

Lead Partner: Turun yliopisto

Department: Brahea Centre, Centre for Maritime Studies

Address: Turun yliopisto 1, 20014 TURKU, Finland

Legal status: public

Website: http://www.utu.fi/

Total budget: EUR 252 624.12

ERDF budget: EUR 189 468.09

Kunda Sadam AS

Name: Kunda Sadam AS

Department: na

Address: Ahtri 12, 10151 Tallinn, Estonia

Legal status: private

Website: http://www.kundasadam.ee/

Total budget: EUR 206 160.72

ERDF budget: EUR 175 236.61

Posintra Oy

Name: Posintra Oy

Department: Business Services

Address: Rihkamakatu 4A, 6100 Porvoo, Finland

Legal status: public

Website: http://www.posintra.fi/

Total budget: EUR 94 759.00

ERDF budget: EUR 71 069.25

AS Kunda Nordic Tsement

Name: AS Kunda Nordic Tsement

Department: Port of Kunda

Address: Jaama 2, 44106 Kunda, Estonia

Legal status: private

Website: http://www.knc.ee/en/node/5166

Total budget: EUR 29 036.65

ERDF budget: EUR 24 681.15

Loviisan kaupunki

Name: Loviisan kaupunki

Department: Business development

Address: Mannerheiminkatu 4, 7901 Loviisa, Finland

Legal status: public

Website: http://www.loviisa.fi

Total budget: EUR 145 612.49

ERDF budget: EUR 109 209.37

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Port of Kunda

Reinforcing Eastern Finland-Estonia Transport Corridor

Partners and Projects info

Posintra Oy

Reinforcing Eastern Finland-Estonia Transport Corridor

Partners and Projects info

Kunda Nordic

Reinforcing Eastern Finland-Estonia Transport Corridor

Partners and Projects info

City of Loviisa

Reinforcing Eastern Finland-Estonia Transport Corridor

Partners and Projects info

University of Turku

Reinforcing Eastern Finland-Estonia Transport Corridor

Lead partner

Project partner

Summary

Project name (EN): Reinforcing Eastern Finland-Estonia Transport Corridor

Project acronym: REFEC

Project start date: 2017-12-01

Project end date: 2020-11-30

Project status: closed

Total budget/expenditure: EUR 728 192.98

Total EU funding (amount): EUR 569 664.47

Co-financing sources:

ERDF: Amount, EUR 569 664.47.

Information regarding the data in keep.eu on the programme financing this project

Financing programme

2014 - 2020 INTERREG V-A Finland - Estonia - Latvia - Sweden (Central Baltic)

Last month that data in keep.eu was retrieved from the Programme's website or received from the Programme

2023-11-11

No. of projects in keep.eu / Total no. of projects (% of projects in keep.eu)

137 / 137 (100%)

No. of project partnerships in keep.eu / Total no. of project partnerships (% of project partnerships in keep.eu)

663 / 663 (100%)

Notes on the data

Information provided by the Programme. Achievements were retrieved by Interact from the Programme website (http://centralbaltic.eu/), or a website directly linked from it, on 2021-11-08, 2023-01-12 and 2024-03-08.

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Reinforcing Eastern Finland-Estonia Transport Corridor

Description

Thematic information

Partners (5)

Partners map

Summary

Information regarding the data in keep.eu on the programme financing this project

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