The TEN-T corridor Orient / East-Med connects the ports in northern Europe with Central and Southeast Europe. However, a crucial bottleneck along the corridor is the Dresden-Prague section, which needs to be extended by a new railway line, if more freight is to be transported by rail.

Taking this situation into account an Interreg project is being proposed to strengthen the cooperation of stakeholders in the field of freight transport and logistics along the axis Hamburg/Rostock-Dresden-Prague-Vienna/Bratislava-Budapest, and to improve the embedding of the corridor in regional development strategies in the CENTRAL EUROPE cooperation area.

The project focuses on the following aspects:

• Development of strategic plans for the use of corridor effects
  ("Corridor Capitalisation Plans")
• Strengthening of (logistic) locations
• Strengthening (and developing) of transport offers

"Corridor Capitalisation Plans" show how investments in the transport infrastructure along TEN-T corridors and resulting capacity increases and quality improvements affect regional development. At the same time they show which contributions from the regions can strength-en the functionality of the corridors as a whole.

From a technical point of view, the following issues and aspects need to be considered and investigated during the elaboration of “Corridor Capitalisation Plans”:

• National and regional spatial development plans and strategies,
• regional logistics strategies, strategies for the development of selected locations, taking into account aspects of spatial planning and regional development policies,
• strategies for the improvement of the accessibility of urban nodes,
• investigations of cross-border transport and demand potentials,
• investigations of technical and organisational solutions that strengthen rail freight trans-port in the competition of regions.

Possible technical and organisational solutions include e.g. the interconnection of continental and maritime transport chains, the creation of mixed trains from combined and wagonload traffic through the networking of rail-road terminals in freight villages (GVZ) and ports with railports and the use of innovative rail/road transhipment systems.

As a result of project work, proposals for solutions and recommendations for action in the catchment area of the Orient / East-Med TEN-T corridor are expected to contribute to economic activation and cross-border networking, as well as to the strengthening of low-emission and environmentally friendly transport modes.

Within the scope of the project "Corridor Capitalisation Plans" are to be developed for selected cross-border sections along TEN-T corridors. In particular, the sections are important in which planned investments in the transport infrastructure significantly improve the regional and supra-regional accessibility of border regions.

Within the CENTRAL EUROPE cooperation area the following cross-border sections and border areas (focus areas) in the area of influence of the TEN-T corridor Orient / East-Med can be identified as particularly relevant due to their bridging and linking functions:

• D-CZ: New railway line Dresden-Prague; related border areas: Saxony, Ústecký kraj
• AT-CZ-SK: Brno-Vienna/Bratislava; related border areas: Jihomoravský kraj, Bratislavský kraj, Lower Austria
• AT-SK-HU: Vienna/Bratislava-Budapest; related border areas: Burgenland, Győr-Moson-Sopron region, Bratislavský kraj
• PL-CZ-SK: Linkages with the Baltic-Adriatic und Rhine-Danube corridors; related border areas: Śląskie voivodship, Moravskoslezský kraj, Žilinský kraj
• CZ-AT: České Budějovice-Linz, connection to the Western Balkans; related border areas: Jihočeský kraj, Upper Austria
• AT-SI-HR: Villach/Graz-Ljubljana/Zagreb, connection to the Western Balkans; related border areas or countries: Carinthia/Styria, Slovenia, Croatia

As a matter of principle, each "Corridor Capitalisation Plan" should be targeted at the issues and challenges that are of utmost importance to the investigated area from a local and re-gional perspective, in order to further strengthen and develop the functional coherence of the cross-border focus areas. This also relates to the issue of cross-border spatial monitoring when providing the data required for cross-border analyses and assessments.

The following figure visualises the intervention logic of the project, with its particular focus on cross-border improvements in transport infrastructure.

The findings and recommendations obtained during the elaboration of "Corridor Capitalisation Plans" should be applied as contribution to the updating of regional and, where appropriate, national plans and programmes. This concerns sectoral plans and programmes in the field of freight transport and logistics as well as national and regional spatial planning and spatial development plans.

"Corridor Capitalisation Plans" and related assessment models thus contribute as tools to higher-level strategies. If useful, relevant European funding programmes (e.g. ESI funds, Interreg A programmes) should also be addressed.

• SMR Saxon State Ministry for Regional Development (Lead Partner)
• SBO Saxon Inland Ports Upper Elbe
• Rostock Port
• Ustí Region
• KORDIS JMK
• IPP Institute of Spatial Planning
• KTI Institute for Transport Sciences Non-profit Ltd.
• FBL Freeport of Budapest Logistics
• GySEV Györ-Sopron-Ebenfurth Railway
• New railway line Dresden-Prague EGTC

• MMR Ministry of Regional Development of the Czech Republic
• MDČR Ministry of Transport of the Czech Republic
• DGG Association of German Freight Villages
• ŽESNAD Association of Rail Freight Carriers of the Czech Republic
• Saxon Switzerland-Eastern Ore Mountains District
• Bratislava Self-Governing Region
• Nitra Self-Governing Region
• ÚÚR Institute of Spatial Development
• ARL Academy for Territorial Development in the Leibniz Association
• Metropolitan Region Central Germany

The ARL contributes concerning issues of steering systems in spatial planning, especially in relation to logistics and traffic issues.