THE DANUBE PORTS AS MULTIMODAL TRANSPORT HUBS AND THEIR LOGISTICS SERVICES

Abstract

Till the first part of the 20th century inland ports used to be taken as places on the waterway where water transport met with other modes of transport. Increase of volume of cargo transported by water transport in the second part of the 20th century, building of larger and faster inland vessels caused the disproportion between the performance of water transport and transhipment capacity of inland ports. Therefore, it was necessary to increase the performance of handling equipment of inland ports, to enlarge land area of ports, to modify of shipbuilding so that transhipment of cargo could be faster and to reduce downtimes during transhipment of vessels in ports. At present inland ports are the hubs on the waterway where different logistics operations and services are carried out such as transhipment, storage, transport of cargo by different modes of transport. The Danube River is the main axis of waterways for ten European countries located in Central and East Europe. There are located 34 inland ports of different performances that provide various logistics services to their customers. The basic goal of the paper is to focus on the selected Danube ports, to analyse and to compare them from different points of view and to prepare the list of recommendations that could help them to increase their handling performances.