RB Estonia, the national implementing body for the Rail Baltica project in Estonia, has launched a call for tenders for the design of the Muuga multimodal freight terminal.
The Muuga terminal will be the only Rail Baltica cargo terminal connected to the harbour.
The design brief for the Muuga intermodal freight terminal includes designing the freight station, the terminal connections and the infrastructure directly related to them such as the railway tunnel, the catenary equipment, the traffic control systems and control centre and the rolling stock maintenance depot (which will allow freight rolling stock maintenance to occur at the station).
The winning bidder will also have to solve nearby issues, such as the Maardu road junction and the Pōhjaranna road viaduct. The deadline for submitting proposals is 19 June 2020.
The procurement documents are available in the supplement of the official journal of the European Union.
“Muuga freight terminal is one of the most important objects of the project in terms of Rail Baltica freight transport, the development of which will increase the value and competitiveness of both the railway and Muuga Harbour. Muuga Harbour will have a rather unique infrastructure combination that enables to operatively reload goods from sea transport and road transport to railway transport of different widths and vice versa. It also serves as a prerequisite for a smoother flow of freight from road to railway, especially over the medium distance in trade between Central and Southern Europe. I am glad that we have been able to successfully cooperate with both Tallinna Sadama and Eesti Raudtee when developing this project.”
Prior to the call for tenders to find a designer for the freight terminal and related infrastructure, Civitta Eesti AS and Deutsche Bahn Engineering & Consulting studied the feasibility of trade from Muuga. Reaalprojekt OÜ helped improve the technical solutions. Then, at the start of 2020, Ramboll Deutschland created a potential operational plan for Muuga harbour.
“Rail Baltica train connection brings a completely different dimension to the logistics chain of Estonia and the entire Baltic Sea region. The existing capacity of Muuga Harbour together with the future multimodal terminal provides an opportunity for developing a comprehensive transport hub, which will create a completely new north-south freight corridor, but also opens up opportunities in the direction of East as well as Asia.
“Already today, we see that many large international logistics companies are assessing the opportunities to be created by Rail Baltica in their development scenarios, and by progressing with the project we will also give them a signal to be considered in making their future plans.”
An estimated 4–5 million tons of goods will go through the Muuga multimodal freight terminal once Rail Baltica becomes operational. The Civitta Eesti AS and Deutsche Bahn Engineering & Consulting analysis suggested that in 20 years’ time this figure could reach 8–10 million tons.
“The addition of the Rail Baltica Muuga multimodal freight terminal will bring additional synergies, especially for the transport of freight flows in containers and trailers by railway directly to Western European destinations without costly and time-consuming transhipment at the Lithuanian-Polish border.”
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