CONTENTS
Abstract 5
Keywords 6
INTRODUCTION 6
Case Study 1: BARCELONAʼs Ports & Harbours 6
Barcelona Introduction 6
The History of the Barcelona Model 7-8
The Barcelona Model 8
The Barcelona Regeneration Model 8-9
Concluding Thoughts on the Barcelona Model 9
Port Authority of Barcelona 10
The History of the Port 10-11
The First Artificial Port 11
18th Century Draught 11
The Works Committee 1968 11
The Expansion of Delta 11
Port Authority 11
The Way Forward 11
Logistics Port 11
Regular Lines 11-12
Strategic Development 12
Port Enlargement Works 13
2008 Developments: East & South Breakwaters 13
East Seawall 13 South Seawall 13 Prat Wharf 14 Corrective Measures 14 Infrastructure Actions 14 Preparation of Areas 14-15 Rail Accesses 15 Air Quality 15 Waste Collection 15
Development of the Port Network 16
The Zaragoza Goods Terminal 17
The Toulouse Goods Terminal 17
Perpignan Goods Terminal 18
Service Centre for France 18
New Barcelona – Lyon Express Rail Service 18
FERRMED 18
Tanger-Med Logistics Area 18
Intermodal Logistics Centre (CILSA) 18-19
Leading the Way in CSR 19
Stable Cargo 19
Boost to Rail Traffic 20
Systems & Develoment 20-21
More Passengers 21
Terminal A - Adossat Wharf 22
Terminal B - Adossat Wharf 22
Terminal C - Adossat Wharf 22
Terminal D - Adossat Wharf – Palacruceros 22 Terminals North and South – Barcelona Wharf 22-23 Terminal M - Port Vell - Espanya Wharf 23 Barcelona Ferry Terminal - Sant Bertran Wharf 23
Terminal Z - Drassanes - Barcelona Wharf 23
GUIDING PRINCIPALS 24
Port Development & Master Planning 24
Long Term Planning 24
Medium Term Planning 24
Guiding Principles for Port Design 24-25
Port Costs 25
The Port Masterplan 25
Port Location 25
Design Criteria 25
General Layout of Port Works - Principals 25
Port Entrance 25
Connections with Inland Areas 26
Storage Area 26
Review of Existing Port Installations 26
General Cargo Terminal 26
Bulk Cargo Terminal 26
Basic Design Criteria for Marinas 27
Water Dependant Uses 27
Shipping 27-29
BARCELONAʼs Commercial & Leisure Port 30
PORT VELL 30
The Port Vell Operation in Barcelona 30-31 Port Vellʼs Commercial & Leisure Services 31-33 Port Vell in relation to the Barcelona Model 33 The Barcelona Model in Comparison to Other Metropolitan Cities
33
Case Study 2: The Revitalization of Torontoʼs Waterfront
34 Torontoʼs Waterfront Revitalization 34-35 Torontoʼs Waterfront on the World Stage 35-36
The Waterfront Scene 36-37
An Astonishing Opportunity 37-38
The Pressures for Action Now 39-40
The Big Challenges 40-41
A Strategic Business Plan – The Development Concept
41-44
Torontoʼs Solution 44
A Picture of the New Waterfront 44
The Central Harbour 44-45
The East Bayfront 45
The West Bayfront 45
The Portlands 45
New City Neighbourhoods 45
The Olympic District 45
The Convergence Centre 45
Lake Ontario Park 46
Grand Channel District 46
The Mouth of the Don River 46
The West Donlands 47
The Eastern and Western Waterfronts 47-48
The Eastern Waterfront 48
The Western Waterfront 48-49
Phasing of Implementation 49
Structures, Powers and Governance 49-50
Land Sales/ Leases (Residential) 50
Infrastructure Spending 50
End-State Impacts 50
Toronto´s Waterfront Design Details 51-52
SUSTAINABILITY PRINCIPLES 53
Building a Sustainable Community 53
Sustainable Land Use 54
Sustainable Transportation 54-55 Sustainable Building 55-56 Air Quality 56 Human Communities 56-57 Cultural Resources 57 National Heritage 57-58 Water 58-59
Minerals and Waste 59
Innovation 59-60
CONCLUSION 61
Compact Design 63
Walkable Mixed-use Communities 63-64
Places where people want to be 64-66
Resilience to Natural Hazards & Climate Change 66
Environmental Conservation 66-67
Bibliography 68-70
Photographs 71
Nicholas Orthodox Socrates 2011 - 4123875 TU Delft – AR2A010 – Architectural History Thesis
In Relation To Port And Harbor Areas,
What Are The Key Factors And Guiding Principles For Major Waterfront Development?
Abstract
This paper aims to reveal the key factors and the guiding principles for major waterfront development in relation to port and harbor areas; After introducing the city of Barcelona, the Barcelona Model, then the History of Barcelonaʼs Ports Development, this paper will focus in on Barcelonaʼs working ports; understanding the logistics and the infrastructure of these functioning areas, how they are managed and how they relate, influence, and govern the development of the city.
This paper will then look at Barcelonaʼs cruise ship terminals, their services and their importance in relation to the growth of tourism within the city.
Concluding this section with an overview of guiding principals of Port Master Planning, Port Development & Port Design studying long and medium term planning, design criteria, shipping & cargo, emphasizing the importance of the ports location and its connections with inland areas.
This paper will shift back to Barcelona, with an in-depth study on Port Vell; Barcelonaʼs very successful, very popular, commercial and leisure waterfront functioning port, as an international tourist attraction and world renowned regeneration project.
With a time-line study of the complete history of this port and then an in-depth study into each of Port Vellʼs commercial services, facilities and uses.
Concluding this chapter by understanding Port Vellʼs importance in relation to the Barcelona Model and how this profound metamorphosis of the port has served to integrate the site into the city and into urban life to the point where, every year, 16 million people visit this multi-purpose spot, as a point of reference for locals and visitors alike.
This first case study will be concluded completely by touching upon ʻGreen Urban Planningʼ and the Barcelona Model in relation to other metropolitan cities.
This paper will then shift into its second case study; Torontoʼs Waterfront Revitalization, which is still an ongoing process. This project is a very ambitious, very well planned, polly-faceted, waterfront enterprise, set to revitalize and regenerate, not only by defining Torontoʼs character, as a major metropolitan world city, but also acting as a transformative gateway to commerce, culture and tourism for Canada itself.
This study will outline the pressures and motivation behind acting now, the big challenges which lie ahead, and how Toronto arrived at its solution. Looking at its Strategic Business Plan, its Develop Concept and its different areas, its facets, its ports and harbours, and its different sections of waterfront.
This paper will analyze Torontoʼs Waterfrontʼs phasing of implementation, its structures, powers and governance, whilst looking at the financial concept and the infrastructure spending behind this huge regeneration.
This section of the paper will be closed by giving several examples of a variety of design details visioned implemented by West 8+DTAH in 2007.
The study of Toronto continues by looking in detail at its sustainable principals for building a sustainable community, its objectives, strategies and actions taken concerned with; land use, transportation, buildings, air quality, human communities, cultural resources, national heritage, water and minerals and waste.
Concluding this paper by offering the most important guiding principals and key elements for waterfront development in relation to mixed land use, compact design, walkable mixed-use communities, the importance of vibrant areas and creating areas where people want to be. The conclusion will close by talking about the resilience to natural hazards and climate change and the importance of environmental conservation.
Keywords
Waterfront, Development, Revitalization, Regeneration, Toronto, Ports, Harbours, Barcelona. Urban Design, Development, Planning,
Introduction
In many cities, efforts are currently being made to renew the strength of their waterfront. These efforts are supported by several conditions. Land left vacant by deindustrialization is now cheaper and in many ways prime spots for development. These areas have high aesthetic and functional values due to their proximity to the water and the city core. Because of the many potential overlapping jurisdictions of government that are involved, however, detailed planning is essential for such waterfront development and redevelopment. (Mulvihill, 1991).
Many different developments can be planned along the urban waterfront. Large-scale mixed-use developments offer many commercial and economic opportunities. These projects contribute a great deal to the process of re-establishing the vitality of the inner city. Other types of developments are more social than economic. Parks, water-edge walkways, and environmental conservation all add to the cultural landscape. Of similar importance are restorations and preservations of historical sites along the waterfront. Lastly, marketplaces, festivals, happenings and the like contribute much to an area's well being. They are not only a source of economic contributions to the city, but they also enhance the culture of the area. (Mann, 1988)
Three issues should be considered when building on the waterfront. Urban designers involved in the planning process should first consider the functional value of their work. This includes attention paid to accessibility and security. As well as planning flood control, environmental education should also be implemented to ensure protection of the land and wildlife. Finally, the most important aspect of a proposed development is its contextual fit within the existing landscape. (Breen & Rigby, 1991)
This last issue relates to the postmodern trend in architecture. In some ways this movement is a turn away from the modern strive for urbanization. Rather than a collection of glass boxes, postmodern architecture tries to give buildings more character and make them look welcoming. Buildings are designed as more of an addition to the natural landscape than an intrusion to it. Especially along the waterfront, then, where cities usually first began, a sense of serenity and natural presence, along with an attention to its historical importance, is needed to bring about the area's full worth. Along with this significance, its physical connection to the city and its previously mentioned economic and cultural potential make the waterfront a key resource in inner city redevelopment. (Smolski, 1990). In general, the history of urban waterfront developments can be understood from a modified version of the economic rent model (West, 1989).
This theory of land use is also known as the rule of bid rent for highest and best use. The model was made based on the theory and empirical data that suggest land use is determined by the economic possibilities in each area. The predominant condition of urban waterfronts before the late 1950s shows that the city harbor was a central place for business relating to ocean cargo. In addition to the central location, industry was also planned along rivers due to an availability of hydropower and easy waste disposal. Many of these businesses were later relocated due to advances in railway and highway transportation. Urban waterfront industry was no longer the least expensive way of manufacturing and transporting goods. Industry moved to cheaper land because of the ease in transportation, and the city core became deindustrialized. In the 1960s and 1970s the urban waterfront existed as something of an industrial wasteland because of its low economic and social conditions. (Hubbard, 1994)
However, the deindustrialization of waterfront areas does not need to cause the complete abandonment of the area. Instead, many other developments can make use of the waterfront. In many ways the deindustrialization of the waterfront is a blessing. This is because there is now room for not just industry, but commercial, residential, and public space as well. Therefore, the deindustrialization of the waterfront, although initially leading to a decline of the area's worth, in the end allows for the rebirth of the waterfront as a more enjoyable and recreational area. (Hubbard, 1994)
"The waterfront becomes symbolic of our human limitations – and of our potential. It functions as both a physical and a psychological frontier. By representing what is deep and knowable, it suggests both our hopes and our fears for the future. It is a shimmering mirror which reflects the sunlight of the day and the city lights of the night, breaking them up into millions of sparkling rays, abstracting and making poetic our work-a-day world." - John Rubin, 2004
Great waterfronts are not developed over days or months; they emerge through dedicated action by residents, waterfront users, and community leaders over a number of years, sometimes decades. Each successful project, no matter how small, should bring new strength to the waterfront, creating a greater economic and social sum of its constituent parts. (Evenius, 2003)
Case Study 1: Barcelonaʼs Ports and Harbours Barcelona
Barcelona, located in the north-east of Spain and on the shores of the Mediterranean, is one of the main European metropolises, and the centre of an extensive metropolitan region made up of more than 217 towns, with a total population of 4.6 million inhabitants. It is the economic, cultural and administrative capital of Catalonia and a leader of an emerging business area in the south of Europe, which is made up of more than 800,000 companies and 17 million inhabitants. Within this Euro-Mediterranean region, which includes the Balearic Islands, Valencia, Aragon and the south- east of France, Barcelona is focusing on new strategic, competitive and international sectors, and it is consolidating its position as one of Europeʼs principal metropolises. Catalonia, and its capital Barcelona, has always been a welcoming
place for those visiting it. Throughout its history, many different peoples have passed through this land and almost all of them have settled here. This has made Catalonia a welcoming place, which is tolerant, dynamic and open to anything that is new.
Catalonia and Barcelona have now become one of the main economic hubs of Europe. A driver of the Spanish economy, 21st century Catalonia is an innovative country with a highly-qualified labour force, an enviable geographical position (at the heart of Europe and connected to the rest of the world thanks to its Mediterranean ports and its international airports) and top-notch infrastructure and facilities that draw important investments year after year.
(The Media Centre in Barcelona, 2007)
The History of the Barcelona Model (Abadir, 2005)
Barcelona, one of Europe's most beautiful and historic cities, has been held up as a model of urban planning and renewal, its public spaces and art renowned internationally, especially since it hosted the 1992 Olympics. Though it cost the city $10 billion (U.S. dollars), the impetus transformed the Mediterranean city's neglected port into a revitalized waterfront and has since led millions of people lining up at its door. But the house of Barcelona is not a continually expanding one. It is a city wedged between the mountains and the sea, and the case of urban sprawl cannot therefore exist. Highlighting the one main problem of the city… space! It's a battle between tourist dollars, and citizen's needs.
Across Europe, housing has re-surfaced on political and urban agendas. But those countries to the south of Europe, particularly Spain, have created a housing crisis that tourism has insufferably affected. Barcelona has a low level of spatial segregation, simply because there is no space; tourists and natives are forced to live together.
In the 1920s Barcelona was the fastest growing city in Europe. The population of Barcelona expanded by 62 per cent during that decade and adjacent blue-collar suburbs like Hospitalet and Santa Coloma doubled and tripled in population. Modernization and industrialization were proceeding at a rapid pace. Migrants from nearby regions were flooding into the city to take jobs. By the 1930s the province of Catalonia, with about 6 million residents, contained about 70% of the manufacturing capacity of Spain.
(Photographs: Port de Barcelona, Port Authority, The Port, Maps & Access 2009)
The rapid expansion of the city led to a serious housing shortage and a rapid rent inflation that had rent rising up to 150% in many areas. The severe shortage of housing also led to serious problems of overcrowding and deterioration in the kind of housing available to the working class. There was some public housing — inexpensive concrete buildings — but only 2,200 units had been built. The city relied overwhelmingly on the private real estate market to provide housing.
Although there were some large-scale private apartment blocks or "estates," much of the housing was provided by a huge class of small property owners. The main landlords' organization, the Chamber of Urban Property, had over 97,800 members in the province of Catalonia. Shanty towns began to appear on the outskirts of the city. But these were not shanties built by the residents but by landlords who built substandard dwellings while the authorities looked the other way. By 1927 it was estimated that over 6,000 shanties had been built in Barcelona, housing 30,000 people, with more in surrounding towns. In the older parts of Barcelona many flats or houses were cut up into tiny units. Often the penny-pinching landlords refused to provide water hookups for these new units, even though the city building codes had required running water since at least 1891. By 1933 it was estimated that 20,000 flats or houses in Barcelona lacked running water. The Economic Defense Commission estimated that 45,000 people were taking part in the rent strike in July of that year, and over 100,000 by August. Even if these estimates are a bit exaggerated, clearly, this was a massive rent strike. There were rent strikes going on in all the working class neighborhoods of Barcelona, and a number of the outlying towns had set up their own Economic Defense Commissions and were pursuing a similar recourse. It took years for the affects of the strike to deplete. And the government has been trying to balance accommodating tourists and natives since.
"The Governor's housing" is a complex of 900 flats of 20 square metres that were built in 1952 to house people living in the slums of Barcelona; they were privatized during the 60's to avoid maintenance costs and social conflicts. Some years later, the growth of Barcelona reached this marginal neighbourhood, which ended as an "island" of decay in the centre of the new urban outskirts. Its inhabitants grew old, and only the poorest youth remained there. When, drugs and delinquency settled in, the situation worsened and it was only in 1990, after several claims, when the three public administrations (State, Regional and City) reached an agreement. The Catalan Government accepted the total renewal of the houses with the financial help from the Ministry responsible for public works and the City Council's commitment to rebuild the area.
A new plan was designed together with the Neighbours' Association, with the task of keeping everybody in the same quarter and the objective to standardize that quarter socially as an urban area. The new streets became intertwined with the old nearby ones, the new squares opened instead of closed, and some old flats that were empty were renewed to house some of the neighbours temporarily. To execute the plan, which started in 1992, a private team specialized in managing was contracted. This team, placed on the spot, directed all the operations of expropriating, pulling down, transferring families, integrating, etc. By the time that fifty percent of the program was executed, results had already become evident: 239 families were given new flats, new commercial activity began, and illegal activities disappeared. And, an episode of degradation that should have never occurred began to slowly vanish from people's memory.
When the 1992 Olympics arrived in the city it brought with it more than a few hundred runners, bikers jumpers and swimmers; millions of tourists flanked the city, certainly a monetary bonus for tourism sectors, but hotels, parking lots, restaurants and the like needed to be built to accommodate the millions of people that Barcelona would host. There was a problem with space! As the city is built between the sea and the mountains, urban sprawl is not an option. Meaning housing costs would sky rocket and the people of Barcelona, pushed out of their own territory. The games indeed did spank a suburban newness to the city, but did little in solving the cityʼs housing shortage.
In 2004 Barcelona hosted a different kind of Olympics — a five-month cultural and intellectual forum that was focused on solving the worldʼs problems.
Organizers said they'd expected more than five million visitors to converge on the city for the 2004 Forum of Cultures -- part festival, part meeting-of-minds on broad themes such as peace, cultural diversity and “sustainable development” (i.e. housing!) For Barcelona, it was a chance to recover the international limelight it basked in back in 1992 -- not to mention rake in tourist dollars and for a long-overdue face-lift. And it was an excuse for necessary urban renewal. About $460-million (U.S. dollars) of public and private money went to fund the forum events, and a whopping $2.6-billion was spent on the festival's infrastructure, including a total transformation of the city's once-marginalized and crime-ridden northern shore-a neighbourhood called La Mina.
With a very shanty-town like history, La Mina was one of the Cultural Forum's undertakings; thirty years after the first bricks were laid, the Forum set out to create a change in the marginalizing and cramping of its inhabitants. Unfortunately the area's sad legacy left La Mina so torn with the greatest social deprivation within the Barcelona metropolitan area today, that even the forum was unable to complete the revitalization it set out to do. It still suffers from an urban layout, which has created enclosed streets within a fortress-like setting, marginalized from the outside world. Population and housing densities are very high, homes are of poor quality with very limited living space. It has above average numbers living in conditions of poverty, with illiteracy levels running at 25%. Unemployment, employment in the informal sector and absenteeism from school are all very high. The degradation of the community has been intense, with high crime rates and serious social fracturing.
And jarring to the many who advocated it, the forum in La Mina's case was a mass failure and was as unsuccessful as it was televised. But the touristic dollars it brought into the city out shined the forum's “mini” failures. And an anti-globalization group called the Assembly of Resistance to the Forum argued that widely embraced topics such as peace and diversity were just excuses for the city to earn more money with tourism. Thus, keeping with the trend to bow to the spending tourist and turn one's head from the arduous native.
Barcelona's Federation of Neighbourhood Associations says that the forum was taking priority over more important urban issues such as health care and housing. "Housing is a tremendous problem in Barcelona, and thousands of families live without water or electricity. With just 10 per cent of what they've invested in the forum, they could have solved housing problems for 23,000 low-income families," said Eva Fernandez, the federation president.
Innovative and strategic housing policies have been consistently neglected in the broader political and urban agenda of Spain. Tourism has taken the stand and as it looks from here, is not coming down anytime soon. Oddly, just two weeks ago, Spain's hotel industry reported the greatest success in three years; seeing a 5 per cent increase in its “Revenue per available room.” The gravity and complexity of housing problems and of segregation issues are underestimated. Though hoteliers have suffered from problems of overcapacity in the past, Barcelona's public and private developers have been particularly active in this sector and Spanish hotel supply increased by 20% between 2001 and 2005 (comparing to less than 1% in France; a drop of 2% in Germany and a growth of only 5% in the United Kingdom during the same period).
(Abadir, 2005)
The Barcelona Model
The 'Barcelona model', focuses on design issues and the quality of public urban spaces. Whilst also highlighting the capacity to manage unique flagship events such as the 1992 Olympic Games, converting them into levers and strategic instruments of urban renewal and regeneration. Both versions tend to consider the Barcelona model as something singular, something almost unique in the panorama of international urbanism.
The "Barcelona model" of local government and management combines strategic insight, political leadership, innovation, professional management, quality and proximity, civic culture, participation and the involvement of the citizens. It explores some of the elements that have contributed to an efficient municipal management, that obtained new investment based on the optimization of current expenditure and that have transformed the city, maintaining an important level of consensus of the city's population.
(Francisco - Javier Moncl, 2003)
The Barcelona Regeneration Model
• International events are used to enhance prestige, attract private investment and to focus and motivate the city's workforce.
event itself and as a means of regenerating a decaying area of the city in the long-term.
• The use of low-paid immigrant labour and multiple sub-contracting in the construction industry.
• The city is seen as the sum of its neighborhoods, rather than comprising of distinct parts. This discourages a bit-meal approach to regeneration and instead emphasizes the building of communities.
• Public intervention is linked to the demands of the local community. • A reduction in urban density of 20%.
• The radical transformation of the perimeters of the worst affected areas. It is easier to begin the transformation process where the deterioration is not so significant.
• Careful planning of public building locations to encourage regeneration and prevent duplication.
• Buildings of heritage value are conserved for public use such as schools, libraries, offices, cultural centres, etc..
• The introduction of mixed new land uses into an area, including service industries, office and retail, private and public housing. • The encouragement of innovative architecture and thinking.
• Investment in transport infrastructure to improve accessibility. This increases opportunities for economic and social activity. • A deliberate policy of introducing a new social mix into deprived neighborhoods.
• The creation of new communal open spaces in strategic areas to encourage social mixing. The open spaces are created well before new building development commences.
• A flexible rather than rigid approach to planning.
• A policy of spreading new retail and service industries throughout the city, particularly in central areas to retain vibrant communities. • A block on new out-of-town shopping centre developments.
• Compulsory purchase of buildings in very poor condition in order to renovate them using public funds. • Building renovations completed to a high standard, both interior and exterior.
• Tax incentives and grants to refurbish properties.
• Strong political and local leadership to drive the regeneration process.
• Education, job training, health, crime and leisure initiatives to help tackle the social problems of illiteracy, poor health, and high unemployment.
• Collaboration between the Leisure and Social Services Departments to tackle social exclusion amongst the disaffected young. Leisure amenities in schools are kept open until late into the evening.
(Barcelona Field Studies Centre S.L, 2004)
Concluding Thoughts on the Barcelona Model
The main point to highlight is that the Barcelona model has been extremely successful in the renewal and redevelopment of the existing nuclei of the city – the centre and other metropolitan nodes. At the same time, however, it has limitations as an alternative to the extensive and dispersed form of urban planning so characteristic of North American and, increasingly, other European cities. What is being faced is not a reference in the struggle for a greener and sustainable urban planning. Not even examples of high quality landscaping can detract from a lack of effective control of the new urban landscape and of the ʻnew peripheriesʼ, even though they may be interesting palliatives. It is understandable, therefore, that those who analyze Barcelonaʼs experience from the outside have focused on the impressive results of qualitative and strategic urban planning. With regard to the former component of the model – qualitative urban design – it seems clear that the ʻreconstruction of Barcelonaʼ initiated strongly in the first part of the 1980s, constitutes an improved version of what has been carried out subsequently in other cities. For its quality and integration, Richard Rogersʼ affirmation regarding the ʻ20 year time lagʼ in relation to the British cities does not seem exaggerated. A vast number of high quality redevelopments and urban improvements have been carried out in the central areas, maintaining and increasing the vitality and urban quality of the different urban ʻcentresʼ (taken to mean not just the official central business district, but also all the central nuclei of the metropolitan region of Barcelona). It is precisely here where the most creative and novel aspects of the ʻmodelʼ have been demonstrated. All of this, despite the perhaps excessive trust in the ʻgood designʼ, can help to explain not only the scant consideration for the wider metropolitan problem, but also what occurred at the same time in the cityʼs new recreation/leisure and cultural commercial areas. In this sense, it is important not to lose sight of the nature of these successful new public/ private spaces, such as Maremagnum at Port Vell, La Maquinista and Glorias. These large-scale shopping
Centres, which have experienced a genuine boom, contrasting with (or complementing, according to the optimists) the urban quality of the traditional squares and streets.
In the case of the Illa Diagonal development, it involved an intrinsically interesting model of urban design that, especially in its exterior, was somewhat removed from the rhetoric of the Mediterranean city. Yet, the design also facilitated the developmentʼs redefinition in use, in the more private and autonomous sense. Turning to the second component of the Barcelona model – the strategic planning associated initially with the preparations for the Olympic Games – this has been subsequently maintained with as much, if not more, energy. This has promoted Barcelona into a high position in the international urban ranking.
The negative consequences, relating to polarization and social exclusion, so much denounced in other cities, do not appear to have been produced in Barcelona. This is despite the greater importance given in the last post-Olympic phase to the logic of the private sector and ʻflexibleʼ planning, whereby certain processes of a clearly North American origin, such as marketing and theme labeling of the city, have accelerated. These correspond to a highly ʻglobalizedʼ type of planning – especially that associated with Strategic Plans – which at the same time has converted Barcelona into a reference for other cities, especially those in Spain and Latin America.
In any event, the capability demonstrated by the ʻnew Barcelonaʼ to borrow, adapt and elaborate original syntheses relating to the most advanced formulae of international urban planning culture, allows one to consider the possible reorientation of its objectives and urban planning strategies over the next few years. In particular, the operations associated with the Forum of Cultures 2004 will probably indicate Barcelonaʼs capacity to tackle the challenges that are still outstanding. Until now, the notable success of city marketing strategies, linked to the new ʻsymbolic economyʼ or ʻcultural economyʼ and based upon urban tourism, the media and leisure, contrasts with much less attention paid to other important aspects: public transport and, above all, housing. Tackling these issues in a more convincing way would mark a second stage of a wide reaching and really successful ʻplanning modelʼ, although likely to remain somewhat under-proportioned in relation
to the concerns with image and economics.
Thus, the ʻculture of the cityʼ as a promoter of values (as advocated by the Eurocities movement) would remain, for the time being, notably subordinate to culture as a motor of industrial, economic and tourism development.
(Francisco-Javier Moncl, 2004)
(Maps: Port de Barcelona, Port Authority, The Port, Maps & Access 2009)
Port Authority of Barcelona
• The State Port and Merchant Navy abolished the Works Committees and the Autonomous Ports and created the body, ʻState Public Portsʼ. Its objective was to coordinate and control the efficiency of the port system, as well as the port authorities and to be responsible for the port management. For this reason, the Port of Barcelona was renamed the Port Authority of Barcelona
• Barcelona has become the Mediterranean city with the largest increase in tourism. The Olympic Games of 1992 gave the perfect opportunity for the world to be aware of the potential tourist virtues of the city. The Port of Barcelona was able to rise to the occasion for this event by accommodating up to eleven big cruise ships in its installations, which acted as floating hotels.
• From that moment on, the number of cruises and passengers has not stopped increasing, given that, it has allowed the Port of Barcelona to become the most important tourist port in Europe in the last few years. (Information & Photograph: Port de Barcelona, Port Authority, General Plan 2009)
The History of the Port
• Many of the ancient historians and poets have referred to this port: Avieno, Pomponio, Mela, Pliny, Ptolemy...
• In 1903 a tombstone was found, near the cemetery of Montjuic, which commemorates Caius Coelius, who had ordered to build walls and gates to fortify this port area with proven defensive intentions.
• Barcelona started the building of walls around it when the first barbarian invasions started, in the year 263 A.D. Since then, the city has grown in importance and there are multiple references to it, still situated to the south of the mountain of Montjuic.
became the unquestionable maritime capital of the King and Queen of Aragon. From these years the project arised to install a Royal Shipyard; the famous Drassanes, that even now, today, we all know. The date is not certain, but it is true that in the year 1378, the city of Barcelona asked Pere IV to restart the port works begun origanally by Pere III, which were interrupted due to severe storms. In those days, the area from the Shipyard to the city, was commonly used as an anchoring place, since the old port situated to the south of Montjuic was filled with sand due to the advance of the river and its delta. For this reason, it lost the advantage of being a sheltered area.
• The weak protection offered by the anchorage of Barcelona to the ships anchored in that inlet under the terrible east windstorms, caused countless ship-wrecks throughout the 10th to 12th centuries. The inhabitants of Barcelona decided to unite their efforts in order to build a safer artificial port to benefit and make easier the loading and unloading of commercial operations and to develop the maritime commerce which the city required. (Information & Photograph: Port de Barcelona, History of the Port, 2009)
The First Artificial Port
• The dream of having a safe port, which in this part of the Catalonian coast meant to have an artificial port, didnʼt start to be insinuated until the 8th of December of 1438: King Alfonso V the Magnanimous bestowed to the ministers of the city of Barcelona the privilege of building a port and its wharfs, in the way and place that they chose.
• The works for the construction of the wharf started that same year, although a decade later, the storms that battered the coast destroyed all their efforts.
• In the reign of Juan II, on the 20th of September of 1477, the laying of the first stone of a wharf, which was to be definitive and was 103 meters length, took place, arriving to the sand island of Maians, in front of where the Local Representation of the
Government is located today. This wharf was baptized with the name of the Holy Cross, and as time went by, it was known as the Old wharf, and it constitutes the real gem of the artificial and external Port of Barcelona, where the men and the city were allied in order to fight against the elements and storms to produce a useful and safe port.
• The basic port shelter was the East dock, and from the Maians island it was progressively expanded to the South and to the Southwest. In parallel to the sands carried by the sea which were piled up, in inconsiderable amounts, on the beach to the East of this site; the alluvium soil from the Besós river formed a deposit. The Barcelonetaʼs district laid its foundations precisely on these lands gained to the sea, and the sea-landers and fishermen are the ones that historically lived in this Barceloneta neighborhood. (Information & Photographs: Port de Barcelona, History of the Port, The First Artificial Port, 2009)
18th Century Daught
• The enlargements did not stop. In the year 1723, the East Dock was extended to the actual fishermenʼs wharf and in 1772, during Carlos III, the Linterna tower was built. Nowadays it has become the clock tower. • The port needed more depth. In the year 1743, the sand had formed a barrier, which was extended from the end of the East dock to the Pulgas tower (where the Portal de la Pau and Columbus monument stands). These circumstances forced the closing of the port. The solution to the draught problems was not overcome until 1916, with the extension of the breakwater, which in 1882 reached where the floating dock is located today.
• It still remained another problem that the new sand barrier formed from the natural reaction arisen due the change of the flows of the sea, which was solved with the extension of the East Dock and the construction of an outer sea wall. The result of this is that the new entrance is defined from the end of the East Dock to the new wharf, which divides the coast at the bottom of the mountain of Montjuic, where the Ponent wharf is located today. (Information & Photographs: Port de Barcelona, History of the Port, S.XVIII: Draught, 2009
The Works Committee 1968
• With the progressive improvements, a real and effective external port was finally built, free of piled up soils and sands and having a sheltered water area of around 110 hectares. Between the years 1877 and 1882 the first cross-wharf was built, where the Barcelona wharf is located today.
• The works were carried out without rest. In 1926 a new extension of the East dock was finished and in the year 1958, it began its expansion to the south. In 1912 and in 1962 a new outer sea wall was built as the port advanced to the southwest. In the year 1968 the external port had a sheltered water area of around 500 hectares. (Information & Photograph: Port de Barcelona, History of the Port, 1868: Works Committee, 2009)
The Expansion of Delta 1966
• The advance of the port from northeast to southwest makes it surpass the mountain of Montjuic. In the year 1966 the construction of an internal port started. In the Llobregat Delta, the area was dredged and 250 new hectares are added to the port site. Two thousand years later, the commercial activity of the port of Barcelona returns to its original location, to the west of the mountain of Montjuic.
• The Statute of Autonomy of the port granted, in the year 1978, the end of a solid historical tradition of the port of Barcelona. It is then considered, ʻa public entity acting in a mercantile regimeʼ. At the same time, it opened the doors to a period full of future possibilities. In the year 1987 it also started to develop a Strategic Plan, an ambitious project, which affected all the activities of the Port Community. (Information & 4 Photographs: Port de Barcelona, History of the Port, 1966: Expansion by Delta, 2009)
The Way Forward
• There has been a lot of work done over the last few years to organize the zone into areas, in accordance with the different specialized terminals, in order to obtain the efficiency objectives that business demands. The importance of container traffic should be highlighted as it is a key factor in making the Port of Barcelona - the first logistics platform in Southern Europe.
• With so many years of effort and hope, a polyvalent port has been created, which is composed of three fundamental zones: Port Vell (the Old Port), the commercial port and the logistics port. In spite of this, the forecasted growth in traffic for the new millennium has encouraged us to keep on working. Thatʼs why a historic fourth enlargement is about to emerge by diverting the mouth of the River Llobregat 2 km to the south, doubling the present Port area in size. The Plan foresees that in 2050, the area will reach 1,265 hectares, a milestone, which both the city of Barcelona and its citizens deserve. (Port de Barcelona, History of the Port, The Way Forward, 2009)
Logistics Port
• The Port of Barcelona is set up as a large network of facilities and services spread out throughout the region, accessible to clients and offering comprehensive door-to-door logistics services.
• The port premises, in addition to being a major territorial and economic infrastructure, serve as the hub for this set of service centres (port terminals, the Logistics Activities Area, inland maritime terminals, intermodal terminals, depots, etc.), which have global reach and are linked by multimodal transport corridors.
• At these facilities, which operators manage in a decentralized fashion, clients have access to a wide range of handling, transport, logistics and value-added services that facilitate their foreign-trade operations.
• The Port of Barcelona is set up as a large network of facilities and services spread out through out the region, accessible to clients and offering comprehensive door-to-door logistics services.
• The port premises, in addition to being a major territorial and economic infrastructure, serve as the hub for this set of service centres (port terminals, the Logistics Activities Area, inland maritime terminals, intermodal terminals, depots, etc.), which have global reach and are linked by multimodal transport corridors. At these facilities, which operators manage in a decentralized fashion, clients have access to a wide range of handling, transport, logistic sand value-added services that facilitate their foreign-trade operations. The Port of Barcelona own brand-name services -the e-commerce platform and PortIC document interchange, the quality standards and guarantees and the Customer Service Department- make it easier for users to arrange and track their shipments. (Port de Barcelona, The Port, Logistics, 2009)
(Photographs: Port de Barcelona, The Port, Logistics, 2009)
Regular Lines
The Port of Barcelona connects with over 825 ports worldwide through established regular shipping lines, and with its hinterland through an extensive network of road and rail infrastructure. It is both a hub port and a premier transhipment centre for direct ocean lines. (Port de Barcelona, Regular Lines, 2009)
(Port de Barcelona, The Port, Logistics, 2009)
Strategic Development
The forecasted reduction in traffic due to falling worldwide demand, is already beginning to show, and the enlargement projects of other ports that are underway and will soon be up and running, will spell greater competition in the immediate future. In this light, Barcelona Port Authority (APB) has conducted a detailed analysis and has reaffirmed the validity of its strategic axes: enlarging the network port, improving port services - including land accessibility and intermodality - and fostering a far-reaching cultural change within the organization. The contraction of expectations and available resources has led to the rethink of priorities in terms of activities, which must be dynamic and attuned to the present situation. The current option is to focus on objectives that can help the Port to strengthen its market and customer orientation and improve efficiency, quality and productivity to generate a sufficient competitive edge. One move that was particularly successful in this connection in 2008 was the boost given to extending the hinterland deeper into the Iberian Peninsula and France, with the consolidation of the port terminal projects, dry ports and rail corridors serving these areas and attracting new cargoes. This line of activity will be enhanced in the coming years, as will the search for synergies with the Port of Tarragona to achieve a more advantageous position in the shared hinterland.
The underlying aim is to take a deeper look at cultural change in the organization, based on three pillars; Latitude: 41° 21ʼ N
Longitude: 2° 10ʼ E
Tides: Width: 125 cm Draughts: Up to 16 m
North entrance mouth Orientation: 191.8° Width: 370 m Draught: 16 m Warehousing: Covered: 121,035 m2 Open: 2,941,339 m2
Wharves and berths: 20.3 km Ro-ro ramps: 32
Tug operators: 9 Wharf cranes: 29
South entrance mouth Orientation: 205° Width: 145 m Draught: 11.5 m Dry dock: Length: 215 m Breadth: 35 m Capacity: up to 50,000 t Floating dock: Length: 120 m Breadth: 19 m Lifting capacity: up to 4,500 t Land area: 828.9 ha
(Photograph: Port de Barcelona, Annual Report, 2008, pages 2, 3 & 37)!
(Photograph: Port de Barcelona, Annual Report, 2008, page 5)
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• Competitiveness: identifying the situation of the Port of Barcelona with regard to other ports, while considering possible short and medium-term scenarios.
• Consistency: recognising consistencies and inconsistencies in the current culture and describing the desired culture for achieving a competitive port in the current environment.
• Commitment: working on priority lines of action in the fields of management, activity and people, as the manifestation of the commitment to the new culture.
(Port de Barcelona, Annual Report, 2008, pages 6-7)
Port Enlargement Works……model barcelona
From 2008 to 2010 the Port of Barcelona, is currently immersed in the most ambitious period of its growth in its history. The completion of the works to enlarge the East seawall and build the South seawall, and the coastal corrective measures.
The Port Enlargement Works Commissioner coordinates these activities, which are covered in the Llobregat delta infrastructures and environment plan (the Delta Plan), which will make it possible to rescale areas and double the area available at the Port to 1,300 hectares. The new seawalls are the key to generating 439 hectares of new port land, which will gradually be regained from the sea, to house new terminals mainly dedicated to container traffic. (Port de Barcelona, Annual Report, 2008, page 28)
2008 developments: The East and South breakwaters.
These structures define the new profile of the port and create nearly 800 hectares of sheltered waters necessary to house new wharves and therefore to allow new activity. This milestone also arrives at a very important time. The Port has been able to take advantage of 15 years of growth in its traffic and profits to undertake the enormous financial, environmental and technical investment needed to generate the infrastructure that will serve the city for decades to come. (Port de Barcelona, Annual Report, 2008, page 6)
East seawall
The enlargement of the East seawall was completed on 18 November 2008, after 82 months, and was built by the UTE Dique Este, a temporary group comprising FCC Construcción S.A. (35%), Ferrovial-Agroman S.A. (25%), Construcciones Rubau S.A. (25%) and Copisa Constructora Pirenaica S.A. (15%). The work involved building a 2,025 metre long emerging/ sloping seawall crowned at a height of +12.00 m, which extends the existing seawall. The main mantle is made of 50-tonne Parallelepiped concrete blocks at the base, and 80-tonne blocks at the pier head.
The project involved:
• dredging 1.23 million cubic metres of material;
• laying 2.89 million tonnes of riprap classified between 500 kg and 5 tonnes; • tipping 10.60 million tonnes of quarry ballast;
• using 579,210 cubic metres of concrete,
77% for building the blocks and 33% for superstructure and surfaces. The total cost of the works was 213 million EUR, 53% of which was co-financed by the EU Cohesion Fund, and the rest with own funds, not from the general state budget. (Port de Barcelona, Annual Report, 2008, pages 28-29)
South seawall
The South seawall was built in three stretches, the last of which was filled in on 17 July 2008. The works lasted 74 months for the first and second stretches, plus another 44 months for the third. The first part (Stretch I) involved building an emerging sloping seawall two km long and crowned at a height of +9.0 metres. Its main mantle comprises 60-tonne parallelepiped
concrete blocks. The second part (Stretch II) is 1.7 km long and is different to the first. This seawall is built with prefabricated concrete caissons, comprising empty circular cells 3.65 metres in diameter. The caissons are buoyant and were transported to the site by sea. Once the caissons were anchored, the cells were filled with sand to provide solidity and guarantee the necessary stability of the structure. The caissons rest on a bed of quarry ballast with a cross-section of more than 200 metres. In this case, the waves do not break directly against the seawall, but are reflected onto it, advising this particular type of construction and avoiding the need for so much quarry material, thus lowering the overall cost of the work. In addition, this solution will allow the future extrados of the seawall (on the inner side) to form an attached wharf for new terminals. The work on Stretches I and II can be summarised as follows:
• 1.94 million cubic metres of material dredged;
• 9.68 million tonnes of quarry ballast and 3.03 million tonnes of riprap classified between 1.5 and 6 tonnes tipped; • 10.42 million kg of steel forged for reinforcing;
• 429.76 million m3 of concrete used, 129.46 million m3 for making the protection blocks, 186.10 for the caissons and 114.20 for the superstructure and surfaces.
The last stretch of the South seawall (Stretch III) is a 1.1 km emerging seawall, the first 1,000 metres comprising a sloping section with 40-tonne parallelepiped concrete blocks on the main mantle, and the last 100 metres - the pier head - with a vertical section similar to Stretch II. The budget for this project was 113.48 million EUR.
(Photograph: Port de Barcelona, Annual Report, 2008, page 28)
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(Photograph: Port de Barcelona, Annual Report, 2008, page 30)!
The main parts of the project were:
• 0.91 million cubic metres of material dredged;
• 1.55 million tonnes of classified quarry riprap, ranging from 150 kg to 4 tonnes; • 5.36 million tonnes of quarry ballast brought by land and sea;
• 22,350 m3 for caissons, 149,650 m3 of concrete for blocks and 58,280 m3 for the sheltering wall and surfaces, • 1.82 million kg of steel.
(Port de Barcelona, Annual Report, 2008, pages 29-30)
(Photograph: Port de Barcelona, Annual Report, 2008, page 29)
Prat Wharf
The Prat wharf, the first of the enlargement of the area, has now taken shape. The 1,500-metre stretch constitutes the line of the first container terminal in the port enlargement area on the west side of the dock. It will occupy nearly 100 hectares of land regained from the sea. One significant characteristic of this future terminal, with a capacity for 2.5 million containers per year, is that it will be the first semi-automated wharf in Spain and one of the first in the world. The building of the first 1,500 metres of the Prat wharf was divided into two phases. The Prat Wharf Phase I, which was started in 2004 and finished in autumn 2005, involved 1,000 metres of berthing line. It was built with 18.5 metre wide reinforced concrete caissons and one-metre footing each side to reach the 20.5 metre width on the floor. The caissons that were finally built were 41.31 metres long and 17.5 metres high, with a depth at water level of -16.00 m. Phase II, which is 500 metres long, was built between December 2005 and October 2006 and comprises 12 reinforced concrete caissons 13.56 wide on the foundation slab and 12.07 metres at the shaft, 41.30 metres long and 18.00 metres high. The extrados in this phase was built with granular material, with a depth at water level of -16.50 m. (Port de Barcelona, Annual Report, 2008, page 30)
Corrective Measures
The port enlargement not only represents a great potential for growth in logistics, but will also provide the legacy of a beach. One of the corrective measures of the environmental impact declaration involved the generation of a new beach stretching along two kilometres of coastline next of the new right bank of the river. A specific habitat has also been created to maintain and protect the autochthonous fauna, especially the Kentish plover (Charadrius alexandrinus Linneaeus).
All of these works are the physical base on which the Port can grow. This growth is both quantitative (new wharves, cranes and accesses) and qualitative (new shipping lines, better customer service, new connections with Europe) and should consolidate it as the core of the main Mediterranean logistics platform and, along with the actions foreseen in the Delta Plan, make it one of the nerve centres of the European communications network. (Port de Barcelona, Annual Report, 2008, page 31)
Infrastructure Actions
Throughout 2008 Barcelona Port Authority (APB) dedicated a total of 142.75 million EUR to
(Photograph: Port de Barcelona, Annual Report, 2008, page 32)!
(Photograph: Port de Barcelona, Annual Report, 2008, page 31)
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infrastructure works, representing more than 70% of total investment by the authority and approximately 10% more than the previous year. A large part of the investment was dedicated to the works on the southern enlargement of the Port of Barcelona (above). (Port de Barcelona, Annual Report, 2008, page 32)
Preparation of Areas
The work is aimed at remodeling existing areas, especially within the reorganization of the Port of Barcelona's container terminals, involved the following projects:
• Development of the Álvarez de la Campa wharf. This project, which is now complete, involved redeveloping road accesses to the wharf, with the adaptation of the two roundabouts and the roads converging upon them.
• Enlargement of the South wharf. The works currently underway will create 18 hectares of new port land. The project includes removing the current pier of the Compañía Logística de Hidrocarburos (CLH), building a new wharf line between the South and Álvarez de la Campa wharves and a new terrace for loading, unloading and handling containers.
• Berth for liquid bulk carriers. In response to the increase in liquid bulks handled in the Port of Barcelona, work has begun to build a new berth for carriers between 180 and 275m long, to be located in the Inflammables Wharf.
• Enlargement of the Border Inspection Post (BIP) building. The BIP service checks that perishable products from third world countries entering EU territories with all the appropriate health guarantees. (Port de Barcelona, Annual Report, 2008, page 32)
t
(Photographs: Port de Barcelona, Annual Report, 2008, pages 33 & 32)
Rail accesses
The building of rail infrastructures guarantees dynamism and speed in the entry and exit of goods to the port area and allows it to extend its area of influence. (Port de Barcelona, Annual Report, 2008, page 34)
Air quality
Barcelona Port Authority (APB) continued to work hand in hand with the Catalan Department of the Environment and Housing to apply the Air Quality Improvement Plan in the Metropolitan Region of Barcelona, rolling out measures to reduce NOx and PM10 emissions affecting the Port. Such measures include modernizing the fleet of trucks involved in the Proatrans P+ programme; electrifying vessels during stopovers; and fostering the use of rail cargo traffic to take such cargo off the roads. The demolition of the Porta Coeli building on the Adossat Wharf and the storms at the end of the year put various pieces of equipment for the weather and air quality surveillance network (including the P1-Porta Coeli ozone measuring station) out of service. This event provided an opportunity to renew the equipment and restructure the network to adapt it to the new configuration of the port area and the new functions under the environmental monitoring programm of the port works. (Port de Barcelona, Annual Report, 2008, page 36)
Waste collection
1,965 tonnes of waste were gathered by the Port of Barcelona, 26% less than in 2007. The remaining waste for specific management stood at 507 tonnes. (Port de Barcelona, Annual Report, 2008, page 37)
(Port de Barcelona, Annual Report, 2008, page 37) circuit (Photograph: Port de Barcelona, Annual Report, 2008, page 37)
Development of the Port Network
Barcelona Port Authority continued to roll out its strategy of growth based on distributing port services and networked logistics in 2008. This two-fold approach, coordinated by the Strategy and Development Department, involves designing and reinforcing different kinds of service centres – logistics areas, inland goods terminals, intermodal terminals, warehouses and so on – and also providing the infrastructures and services of the multimodal transport corridors connecting these centres with the Port of Barcelona. The idea is for Port customers to be able to access a wide range of handling, transport, logistics and added-value services for their external trade operations in these facilities, which are managed in a decentralised way by the operators. At the same time, the Port of Barcelona's brand services – the Port Community's PortIC telematic platform, quality standards and guarantees and the customer service – allow them to organize and monitor their cargo. (Port de Barcelona, Annual Report, 2008, page 39)
The Zaragoza goods terminal
The Zaragoza goods terminal (tmZ), in operation since 2001, acts as a service platform for imports and exports from Aragon, Navarre and La Rioja. It offers a whole series of differentiated services to professional users (shipping agents, freight forwarders, logistics operators) and, by extension, to importers and exporters. These services include container consolidation and deconsolidation, warehousing and additional services, and customs warehouses; container logistics (empty container storage, warehousing, handling, cleaning and repair, full container handling and a transhipment area for road vehicles): transport services between Barcelona and Zaragoza, and local collection and distribution.
The terminal acts as a neutral operator, allowing any freight agent or professional using maritime transport to plan, organize and/or monitor all the movements of their goods as they pass through the Port of Barcelona. The tmZ facilities at Mercazaragoza cover 120,000 m2, with a 6,000 m2 logistics warehouse and an 8,000 m2 container depot which can be enlarged to 41,000 m2. This year these facilities have been completed with a 50,000 m2 rail terminal connected to the main network which now provides a regular, competitive and high-quality service to rail operators and, by extension, to Aragonese freight agents. Zaragoza's location on the Barcelona–Madrid–Lisbon rail axis, at the nerve centre of the communications network of the north of the peninsula, makes the tmZ rail terminal the origin, destination and strategic intermediate terminal for traffics from the Port of Barcelona and the rest of Spain and Portugal. The most outstanding indicator of the tmZʼs activity is the number of movements in its container depot - a total of 27,912 TEU this year (trains and trucks), with 224 trains (112 incoming and 112 outgoing) providing 6,553 TEU. The rail terminal makes the tmZ logistics platform more accessible and dynamic for the entry and exit of goods. (Information & Photograph: Port de Barcelona, Annual Report, 2008, pages 39-40)
The Toulouse goods terminal
The Port of Barcelona also operates the Toulouse goods terminal (tmT), a similar initiative in the south of France. Set up in 2002, the tmT brings the Port closer to its potential customers in the French Midi region and serves to extend its area of influence and carry port services to the freight agents located north of the Pyrenees. In sum, it taps into new traffics starting and/or ending in the French departments of Midi-Pyrenées and Aquitaine. CILSA, the company that manages the Logistics Activities Area (ZAL) of the Port of Barcelona, is responsible for developing the tmT project in the new facilities of the Eurocentre logistics platform 20 km outside Toulouse. The terminal will offer a 17-hectare logistics activities area with space for local and Port of Barcelona international maritime trade operators to set up, in addition to a Container Freight Station in the remaining three hectares. The first logistics warehouses are due to became available in 2009. (Information &
Photograph: Port de Barcelona, Annual Report, 2008, page 40)
Perpignan goods terminal
Perpignan, just 187 kilometres north of Barcelona, is another major logistics and communications node due to its location on two of the Port of Barcelonaʼs strategic land transport corridors: Toulouse – Bordeaux and Montpellier – Lyon – Southern Germany – Northern Italy. It is an exceptionally-located site for intermodal connections of French and European traffic to Barcelona. This has led the Port to initiate procedures for setting up a goods terminal in Perpignan. The first step was to acquire 5% of the shares of the Local Joint Venture Limited Company, Perpignan/Saint Charles Conteneur Terminal. This company manages a rail terminal located next to the Saint Charles market, one of southern Europe's main logistics and distribution centres for vegetables and fresh produce, and other types of goods. The Port of Barcelona aims to implement a goods terminal in the short term, and has already signed an agreement to develop a 30-hectare ZAL. (Information & Photograph: Port de Barcelona, Annual Report, 2008, page 40)
Service centre for France
The Port of Barcelona has plans for France that are more ambitious than its presence at the facilities in Toulouse and Perpignan and its future sites in Lyon and Northern France. In 2008 various specialised services were created for French customers, under the collective term Service Centre for France. The Port uses this concept as a vector for offering free, tailormade support in the physical and documentary operations involved in the movement through the port. It provides the support of consultants facilitators specialized in setting up efficient logistics chains through the Port, and a team dedicated to creating rail services with France. The increased flows of goods originating or ending in France that passed through the Port of Barcelona were the result of the efforts of the Port Community. The process was also facilitated by sweeping changes in Community Customs rules, which have harmonized procedures with other EU countries. One result of this is that a tax representative is no longer required. Another, perhaps the most important, is that French and non-French hauliers are now free to transport containers by land in and out of the Port of Barcelona. (Information & Photograph: Port de Barcelona, Annual Report, 2008, pages 40-41)
New Barcelona - Lyon Express Rail Service
In the Barcelona – Lyon corridor, the APB has been involved as the business developer and the facilitator of the creation of a new rail service linking the Port of Barcelona with the main cities and regions of France that generate external trade. By virtue of the agreement signed with Renfe Operadora and Naviland Cargo, a specific offer of rail services has been designed for this corridor. The service started operating early in 2009 with three weekly trips in each direction. The ʻBarcelyon Expressʼ service connects the Port of Barcelona's two container terminals (TCB and TerCat) with the Naviland Cargo rail terminal in Vénissieux (Lyon) at the centre of one of the main logistics nodes in France. (Port de Barcelona, Annual Report, 2008, page 42)
FERRMED
The APB is an active member of the FERRMED association, set up to promote the Western Mediterranean – Rhone – Rhine – Scandinavia European goods rail axis between Algeciras (South Spain) and Stockholm. FERRMED's activity focuses on performing a technical, socioeconomic and supply and demand study including the entire area of influence of the axis. The study's conclusions should serve to include this major axis as a priority project in the forthcoming review of the European Commission's European transport policy in 2010. The Spanish government has already expressed its support to the association in this matter. (Port de Barcelona, Annual Report, 2008, page 42)
Tanger-Med Logistics Area
The expansion of the Port's hinterland will also mean a greater presence on the southern shore of the Mediterranean. In April 2008, the Port of Barcelona and TangerMed signed a cooperation agreement to enhance their mutual relations. This also involves the Port of Barcelona developing a logistics area in Tangier to serve the operators of the routes between Spain and Morocco that use these ports. The Port of Barcelona will operate a ten hectare logistics area, five hectares of which will be in the logistics tax free zone and five hectares in the TangerMed dry port area. The strategic focus of the port's network is the APB's response to market demands and a way of contributing to the strategic aim of making the Port a large distribution concentration and logistics centre for Mediterranean cargo. This involves providing transport and logistics services inside and outside the Port by forging alliances with other external operators to attend to increasingly globalised production and distribution needs. (Port de Barcelona, Annual Report, 2008, page 42)
Intermodal Logistics Centre (CILSA)
This year the Intermodal Logistics Centre (CILSA) continued to roll out the second phase of the Port of Barcelona's 143-hectare Logistics Activities Area (ZAL) located at El Prat de Llobregat, South West from the Barcelona centre, situated in the delta of the Llobregat river, also occupied by the Barcelona Airport. The foundations for its success are its strategic location, allowing goods to be distributed efficiently to the markets of the Iberian Peninsula, the south of France, Italy, and North Africa; a flexible offer of high-quality buildings
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