5th IRU Euro-Asian Road Transport  Conference

Powerpoint presentation

Presentation of the NELTI Final Report

Speech Summary by Menno Menist
Managing Director, NEA Transport Research and Training

The Great Silk Route, formed by an extensive network of trade roads across the Asian continent, connecting East, South and Western Asia with the Arabian Peninsula and Europe   was historically playing an important role for the transport of goods between Europe and Asia. Throughout the last century, globalisation, progress by means of transport and information technology and changes in economic relations between countries, considerably reshaped the geography of the transport flows. In this context, maritime transport, bringing indisputable advantages, had been put in the forefront to provide the transport connections between Europe and Asia and the land corridor through Central Asia countries had receded into the background.

The main objective of the NELTI initiative is to get a complete picture of the current situation within former Great Silk Route by studying advantages and weaknesses of the existing Northern, Central and Southern Routes. NEA transport research and training provided scientific support to this project, conducting analysis of driver’s journals received during the project monitoring process. Drivers participating in the NELTI initiative were requested to record a series of given parameters elaborated in accordance with UNESCAP methodology. On the basis of this information NEA experts compared the main characteristics of the three different NELTI routes and presented an overview of the challenges and opportunities for using these land transport corridors.

According to the analysis conducted, NELTI routes give a possibility to transport goods from Central Asia to Europe within 10-18 days depending on the origin and destination of the trip. Transportation time considerably increases when moving away from the European Union, with average distance being 490 km/day in Northern and 360 km/day on Central and Southern routes against an average distance of 750 km/day in Europe. The main obstacles on routes remain: long waiting times at borders, bad road sections, regular interruptions by road police/inspections and Caspian and Black Sea crossing in the case of the Central Route. The importance of each barrier varies depending on the route taken. The cost structure only reveals slight differences between the three routes. In general, expenditures on fuel represent around 70% of the trip costs, followed by border crossing payments and other official costs. Rent seeking behavior on the border and along routes is still a significant issue.

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NELTI Final Report

(EN ¦ RU)

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