Comparative Australia and New Zealand Short Haul Rail: The Importance of Dry Ports

Intermodal transport is generally considered to be viable on markets with larger flows or longer distances; with break-even distances of 500 km or more. However, due to cost of congestion and growing environmental constraints, but also due to competition between seaports, the break-even distance for inland intermodal transport could be very market dependent. A dry port - intermodal terminal with direct rail connection to a seaport - is a potential solution for better seaport inland access based on short haul rail. Therefore the purpose of this paper is to investigate the viability of rail on short distances trough use/implementation of close dry ports. The studied ports in Australia and New Zealand, with their close intermodal terminals, show feasibility of rail on distances shorter than 200km and confirm that the break-even distance for intermodal transport to/from seaports’ hinterland is very market dependent