Karlskrona - an Intermodal Hub

By Tore Almlöf

Karlskrona is a strategic port city for trade and shipping.

The world's leading ferry company, Stena Line, has chosen the Port of Karlskrona as their hub in the Baltic Sea Region. Today Stena Line has three daily departures from Karlskrona to Gdynia in Poland. Karlskrona is the leading RoRo- and passenger port in the south-east Sweden with nearly 100 000 freight units and more than 430 000 passengers during 2007.

During 2010 the present ferries on the route Karlskrona - Gdynia will be replaced by two, today the largest, ferries in the world, Stena Britannica and Stena Hollandica. This means that the freight capacity between Karlskrona and Gdynia will increase with about 40 %, from the current 11 900 lane metres/twenty-four hours into 16 400 lane metres/twenty-four hours. Furthermore, Stena Line estimates that 15 to 20 % of the trailers will arrive and depart with train within a five years period. Karlskrona supports the modal change from road to railway transport. This change is necessary not only from an environmental and sustainable perspective. Karlskrona has also an advantage of two railways, the Coast-to-Coast Line towards Gothenburg and Stockholm and Blekinge Coastal Line towards Malmö/Copenhagen. In the port area there has also been established a handling area for intermodal goods. Close to this area a local logistics company, AC Karlskrona, is going to establish a logistics centre, "AC Logistics Center" with planned start of construction in 2009.

Karlskrona is also partner in the project "The Baltic-Link Motorway of the Sea, Karlskrona - Gdynia" Within the frames of "Motorways of the Sea" the Karlskrona plans to extend the ferry terminal with one new ferry berth and to invest in the environmental friendly electrical power system for the ferries together with improvement of the rail-and road infrastructure.