Safe and Reliable Transport of Dangerous Goods in the Russian-EU Logistics Chain (DaGoRus)
Community Initiative Programme 2000-2006
Baltic Sea Region INTERREG III B NP, 9th call
Measure: 3.1 Promotion of transnational institute and capacity building
The BSR INTERREG III B Steering Committee made decisions on approval of project applications of the ninth call for project proposals at its meeting in Wrocław, Poland on 7-8 December 2006. The Steering Committee has approved the project “Safe and Reliable Transport of Dangerous Goods in the Russian-EU Logistics Chain (DaGoRus)” and the project will be co-financed from the External (Tacis) Funding of the BSR INTERREG III B Programme with a maximum amount of EUR 303.000,00. However, no project activities must be implemented before the Grant Contract is concluded, as the costs for such activities will not be reimbursed by the programme. The maximum duration of the implementation period for projects approved in the 9th round is 24 months. In any case, all project activities must be finalized latest by 31.12.2009.
Background
Interreg III B project called DaGoB, Safe and Reliable Transport Chains of Dangerous Goods in the Baltic Sea Region, (www.dagob.info) was approved by Joint Secretariat in December 2005 in the 8th application round. Unfortunately the Tacis funding available then was too limited and the Tacis component was placed on so-called reserve list and finally remained without financing. Tacis is a programme of technical assistance underpinning the EUs relation with the countries of Eastern Europe and Central Asia. The 9th application round offered a new possibility to apply for Tacis funding. The Tacis extension of DaGoB is called DaGoRus and coordinated by Technical Research Centre of Finland, VTT( www.vtt.fi). VTT has long expertise in the field of maritime and road safety, transportation technologies and risk-assessment. They also have a local office in the centre of St Petersburg assisting with quick and smooth relations to the Russian partners. This is also very helpful when organizing workshops and other events.
Project importance
Transportation volumes in the Baltic Sea region have been growing significantly due to the rapid growth of the Russian and Baltic economies. Especially strong growth has been taken place with oil and chemical transportation.
Increased transportation volumes may pose increased risks to health, people and environment. However, there is only limited information on the Dangerous Goods (DG) statistics generally in the BSR and especially in the transportation between EU and Russia.
The cross-border transportation of DG also affects the risk for accidents and incidents due to the different handling practices, operational procedures, cultural differences and different documentation languages.
The DG transportation chain must be seen as part of the whole intermodal transport chain, where the weakest link equals the total weakness of the chain. Thus institutional framework and harmonization is a key issue in this project.
Project partners
EU-partners: Technical Research Centre of Finland (VTT), Turku School of Economics (TSE) DaGoB leader, Lund Institute of Technology (University of Lund)
Russian partners: St. Petersburg Government Committee of Transport and Transit Policy, North Western Russia Logistics Development Centre (ILOT), non-profit training and research center Protey
DaGoB partners (25 partners from BSR area): linked to DaGoRus via Turku School of Economics (Coordinator) and University of Lund
Expected results
The current practices and operational procedures in EU and Russia will be identified.
Bottlenecks in the DG transport chain will be identified, thus giving the possibility to find out tools (risk control options) and new harmonized procedures to improve safety and reliability.
The project will provide a risk assessment in the DG supply chain by studying real life transport cases.
DaGoRus work package description
WP 1, leader: VTT, Finland; Title: Dangerous Goods transport volumes and identified bottlenecks
WP 2, leader: VTT, Finland; Title: Current practices of the DG transport in the Cross-Border traffic between EU and Russia
WP 3, leader: University of Lund, Sweden; Title: Risk evaluation
WP 4, leader Turku School of Economics; Finland; Title: Harmonization of DG transport Chain
WP 5, leader VTT, Finland; Title: Dissemination and training
DaGoRus Contact
Mr. Jani Granqvist
VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland
Lämpömiehenkuja 2, Espoo
P.O. Box 1000
FI-02044 VTT, Finland
Tel: +358 20 722 4581
e-mail: jani.granqvist@vtt.fi
Tel (St. Petersburg office) +7 812 271 6533