Traffic nodes
Without traffic nodes, international road and railway connections as well as vessels and airlines cannot be connected to a region. That is why the localisation and quality of transport nodes for passengers and goods are of strategic importance for the accessibility and mobility of the Öresund region. Examples of traffic nodes are airports, railway terminals for passengers and goods, industrial harbours, transport centres, distribution terminals and the like. These nodes function to assure the supply of specific forms of transport to the region; they also serve as places of coordination for different modes of transport and transfers concerning destinations for passengers and goods. Because of the increasing globalisation for trade in goods and the increasing distances of passenger trips, there is an increasing need for passengers to use different forms of transport; there is also an increasing need to reload goods from container vessels to road transport. Therefore internationally oriented transport nodes will play an especially important role for the coordination between many different forms of transport and the connections to and from the Öresund region in order to assure smooth mobility.
The most important traffic node for the international accessibility to and from the Öresund region is Copenhagen’s Kastrup airport. 21.5 million passengers used the airport in 2008. An important strength of this airport is its central location in the Öresund region- not only in relation to the geography of the region but also in relation to the population density of the region. In addition, the airport has good accessibility considering public transport, which is reflected in passengers’ choice of transport to and from the airport. 54 percent of all passengers to and from Copenhagen airport used public transport in 2008, while the European ave-rage was 32 percent.
The airport runways at Kastrup have sufficient capacity far into the future. With the right construction of the airport’s other facilities, we can assume that the airport can handle up to three times more passengers than what it can today. Today Copenhagen airport acts as a centre for European and intercontinental flights of Scandinavian Airlines System (SAS); nearly half of the airport passengers in 2008 flew with SAS. On the one hand, the function as a transit hub for SAS is attractive for many travellers, but on the other hand, it means the airport is also sensitive to changes within SAS (ibid).
- Important traffic nodes for international passenger traffic in the Öresund region.
Source: IBU 2/COWI, 2009b
Copenhagen’s airport is an important node for air transport to and from Scandinavia and is significant for accessibility for valuable goods such as electronics, textiles, pharmaceuticals etc. to and from the Öresund region. The airport has direct freight connections to the Far East and USA, and also functions as a national and Scandinavian centre for several large distribution firms. In 2008, Copenhagen’s airport handled 347 200 tons of goods. Even though this amount is small compared to the goods that are transported by other modes, these goods are of higher value per transported ton (8).
The region has very high accessibility by sea, with ten large commercial ports for freight transport on both sides of Öresund. Ferry traffic is important in all these ports and freight traffic by sea makes up about 60 percent of the total amount of goods to and from the ports. Freight transport by ro-ro vessels has an especially large transport capacity.
For freight transport by railway, accessibility to intermodal terminals plays an important role for competitiveness of railways compared to road transport of goods; intermodal terminals handle the reloading of goods such as containers and swap bodies, between freight trains and trucks/vessels. In Skåne there are four intermodal terminals, while in Zealand there is only one. This type of transport solution - where different transport forms are combined - is generally increasing in Europe and is one of the most important initiatives for traffic policy to reduce congestion on roads and reduce the environmental impact from the transport sector. The market share of intermodal transport in Sweden is considerably higher than in Denmark, which can be attributed to the development of highly competitive transport solutions in terms of time and money. For example, intermodal transport between Malmö and Stockholm is so efficient that it can compete with truck traffic on travel time (9).- Important traffic nodes for international freight transport in the Öresund region.
Source: IBU 2/COWI, 2009b
While ports and railway terminals in the Öresund region are by and large publicly owned and thus may be affected by public planning, most of the freight transport in the Öresund region is organised by terminals of private forwarding agents, transport companies and retail trade chains. For example, it is estimated that about 40 percent of all goods to Copenhagen pass through the transport centre in Høje Taastrup, where numerous forwarding agents and transport companies are located (ibid).
(8) IBU 2/Tetraplan, 2009b
(9) IBU 2/COWI, 2009b
