Transport connections, primarily freight transport links and logistics, are among Serbia’s key advantages, given the country’s strategic position on Corridor 10. However, additional efforts are required to build the infrastructure that would enable those advantages to be fully utilised.
The future of transport and logistics is dependent on the continued digitalisation, automation and optimisation of processes, the increased application of robots and artificial intelligence, the deployment of drones and the mass use of electric delivery vehicles, including heavy haulage trucks.
Living and working is easy in times of peace. The challenges come during times of turmoil that require continuous adaptation. It is then that long-term solutions that have remained unchanged for decades lose their value, particularly in areas of life and business that are strongly influenced by geopolitical happenings. And transport and logistics certainly fall into that category…
It was initially the pandemic – with its varied and numerous restrictions, but also large numbers of people infected with the Covid-19 virus – that destabilised movements of people and goods, and threatened supply chains, but fortunately didn’t cause them to break. Despite it seeming impossible for the situation to deteriorate further, with the end of the pandemic came even greater challenges to confront the transport and logistics sector – with the war in Ukraine, the energy crisis, rising inflation, driver shortages – which no country was protected against, including Serbia.
The transport community connects the EU and our region
Testifying to the idea that Serbia can overcome the global crisis and find itself on the right track just by cooperating with European countries and exchanging experiences is the decision to choose Belgrade as the location for the headquarters of the Permanent Secretariat of the Transport Community, representing an international organisation founded with the aim of further developing the existing transport network connecting the EU and the countries of Southeast Europe. The Transport Community’s members include the European Union and the six countries of the Western Balkans: Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, North Macedonia, Kosovo, Montenegro and Serbia, while its purpose is to extend the EU transport market’s rules, principles and policies to the countries of the Western Balkans through a legally binding framework.
Constructing road and rail infrastructure is crucial to strengthening the economies and competitiveness of the entire region
The agreement is applied in the areas of transport by road, rail, inland waterways and maritime routes, and Serbia has obliged itself, with the adopting of the founding agreement, to harmonise its legislation with the EU acquis in these areas. Serbia attaches great importance to every project agreed and implemented in partnership with this international organisation, which has also been the case with the joint project of Slovenia, Serbia, Croatia, Austria, and probably also Italy, to develop a single rail route that would connect Belgrade, Zagreb and Ljubljana with Vienna and northern Italy, but also with talks on the inclusion of North Macedonia, Greece and Turkey in regional infrastructure projects following completion of the Belgrade-Niš high-speed railway.
Serbia Must Utilise Its Geographical Position
In order for Serbia to take advantage of the strategic regional position that it enjoys thanks to geography, it is essential to finalise many infrastructure works, including the launched construction of roads and highways, as well as the railway to Hungary; to introduce more efficient customs procedures, accelerate digital transformation processes and implement numerous other measures that will contribute to shortening goods transport times. New investments could secure, among other things, incomparably more efficient transit conditions for goods being transported from China to Europe, as well as improving Serbia’s positioning on the map of Europe.
Construction of the Belgrade-Niš highspeed railway is just one of the major investments in rail infrastructure that are long overdue. Freight transport by rail currently accounts for approximately 18 per cent of total goods transports, which is below the expected level, but is nonetheless commensurate with the current state of rail infrastructure, which is on the whole very poor, with low transit options of domestic rail routes. According to the expectations of transport experts, railways could achieve 25 per cent participation in freight transport flows over the next five years, increasing to 35 per cent over the next decade. The expansion of “dry ports”, built at intersections between important rail and road routes, would certainly contribute to achieving this goal.
Railways And Modernised Ports Needed
One of the Serbian Government’s strategic plans is to connect the Danube and Sava rivers to the rail and road routes of Pan-European Corridor 10. Considering that the problems hindering river and port transport haven’t been solved for years, estimates suggest that a minimum of 500 million euros needs to be invested in waterways infrastructure, but there’s no doubt that the existing picture will improve with the construction of a new port in Belgrade and investments in the port of Novi Sad and to increase the capacities of the ports of Prahovo, Bogojevo and Smederevo.
Advancing rail infrastructure will undoubtedly lead to an increased reliance on rail transport, especially if it is accompanied by the entry of private operators and additional investments in intermodal terminals. This would lead to large quantities of goods being transferred from trucks to trains, but also to the development of combined transport that fuses road and rail and is considered the future of the sector.
Providing an additional reason to switch from road transport to rail is the fact that road haulage operations currently account for a quarter of all greenhouse gas emissions in the European Union and that pollution is a huge problem in the countries of the Western Balkans.
Apart from developing sustainable operations and reducing CO2 emissions, the future of transport and logistics includes the further digitalisation, automation and optimisation of processes, the increased application of robots and artificial intelligence, the deployment of drones and the mass use of electric delivery vehicles, including heavy haulage trucks. Demonstrating that this is neither some distant future reality nor pie in the sky is the current scene on U.S. interstate highways, where AI-controlled trucks already cruise.
Europe is now trying to catch up, and its success will mean smart, autonomous trucks also arriving in our region.