As a part of our event series in mid-June 2026, we had an opportunity to link those together with UIRR & Konecranes, and participate their seminar & site visit as well in Konecranes HQ & factory at Hyvinkää. A day earlier, we had a meeting with Ministry of Transport and Communication, organized a Round Table discussion there to promote Intermodal Transportation in Finland, and had reception & dinner with UIRR, Konecranes Intermodal team and their stakeholders.
As a MoU Peer for UIRR, LIMOWA is participating UIRR events & activities, and sharing information concerning Combined Transport such as CT4EU campaign. This article raises few insights from UIRR’s Intermodal Terminals Interest Group meeting. Very nice to see Konecranes to held such an event and lead this discussion, as well as, to realize that in Finland we have a number of companies which can contribute in this sector.
Stephan Stiehler had a presentation concerning Konecranes and its intermodal offerings, which was a a good introduction into topic. For different sizes of ports and intermodal terminals there exist several options RMGs, RTGs, LiftTrucks etc., as well as, services for them. Referring to our Combined Transport Round Table event day earlier, the question could also be, which is a break-even for terminal itself? Not only to promote to intermodality, but to understand that each player there could make their own profit.
In general level, UIRR event included discussion of overall growth of transportation in Europe, and if done by trucks, other difficulties and challenges may arise. But within EU, instead of national policies we also need a system view to make our transportation system more competitive, and it requires smooth flows of information and goods. To make intermodal chain to work, standardization and harmonization are needed. They used a term ”Transport Omnibus” to simplify the rules. This is also needed, that we have abilities to operate in crisis. Maybe the conclusion was partly the same than in Round Table day earlier: the question is not only subsidies, but clear definitions and the system which may work. Of course, there exist a big amount of work to be done starting from CEF3 Terminal Capacity Study & Action Plan (LIMOWA team is available for that too), Rail Freight Corridors including Capacity Regulations etc.
Another issue, which should be noted within LIMOWA context – is a an automated high-bay storage for containers. For a scarcity of land available at terminal, there might be a need to store containers & trailes, and Konecranes has a product for those needs too. It was a pleasure to be involved in this event, to realize the network of people and how organizations like UIRR, ALICE are putting people together, and to understand, that LIMOWA stakeholders are invited to join to develop business together. And several different types of companies are need to make the flow to work. An example of those contributed in event was Visy, a Finnish company providing machine vision to ports and terminals globally. And as spoken within LIMOWA network, for that technology exist a number of applications in logistics.
LIMOWA is happy to continue this discussion furhter.
More information:
heikki.lahtinen@limowa.fi
+358-50-3424056