Volkswagen Group Logistics (VGL), the logistics arm of German automaker Volkswagen, is to open an automotive terminal in the Port of Venice later this year as part of a strategic redesign of its European vehicle logistics network.
The new hub, located on northern Italy’s Adriatic coast, is being established to serve many of Volkswagen’s plants in southern Germany and Central Europe, thereby reducing lead times, logistics costs, and emissions, while increasing the use of rail transport and shortening ocean shipping times to Asia.
The project was unveiled earlier this week by VGL’s managing director of vehicle logistics, Peter Hörndlein, during a panel discussion at the Transport Logistic conference and exhibition in Munich.
The terminal will offer storage capacity for up to 12,000 vehicles and also boast a designated berth area, allowing shipments to avoid congestion, Hörndlein underlined. His comments were confirmed to RailFreight.com by a Volkswagen Group spokesperson.
Strategic location
The Venice port is well-connected to inland transport, including three railway tracks for unloading trains, and shorter road distances to key plants, he added.
In a LinkedIn post, Hörndlein stated that the terminal will commence operations in October and will support VGL’s ambitions in several ways: enhancing the flexibility and resilience of vehicle logistics for the Group; and providing a strong lever to reduce both costs and CO2 emissions in VW’s transport activities.
“By using Venice – more precisely, Porto Marghera – we shorten transport routes by an average of 20 per cent for vehicles coming from southern production sites, for example, Bratislava, in Slovakia and heading to Asia. This eliminates the need for long detours from northern German ports around Europe into the Mediterranean. With Venice, we will operate an additional port capable of handling large vehicle volumes on regular liner services.”
Enhancing the network
Venice will join VW’s existing port network, which includes the ports of Emden, Bremerhaven, and Cuxhaven in Germany, as well as Zeebrugge (Belgium), Santander and Barcelona (Spain), Koper (Slovenia), and Setúbal (Portugal).
The Volkswagen Group transports around 4.7 billion vehicles and 180,000 TEU of containers annually. Shipments by rail represented 5 billion tonne-kilometres in 2023 compared to 17 billion tonne-kilometres by truck.
In October last year, the German Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA) unveiled an intermodal pilot project to move Volkswagen products between Germany and Spain. It entails the shift to rail for the longest part of the journey and EcoDuo trucks, vehicles carrying two semi-trailers, deployed for the first and last-mile legs.