Upward trend continues in the volume of inland container traffic moved by rail. The Ports of Genoa consolidate their role as a modern logistics platform serving the Northern Italian intermodal terminals. Major importers prefer rail transport to minimise the extra costs deriving from container storage in the port terminals.
In line with the upward trend registered over the last two years, the Western Ligurian Sea Port Authority reported a record 115,208 teus moved by rail in the second quarter of 2022, a +9% increase on the corresponding period of the previous year, whilst a total of 215,650 teus were freighted by rail across the first half of the year, a +10.3% advance on 2021. The strong performance registered above all in May and June, with an average of 1000 trains operated per month, boosted the rail ratio in the Ports of Genoa from 16% in the second quarter of 2021 to 17.4% in 2022, reaching 18.3% in export and 16.4% in import.
Overall, the Ports of Genoa and Savona-Vado Ligure confirm a general increase in total cargo throughput, up +5.8% from the second quarter of 2021 and +0.2% from pre-Covid 2019 to the 17,653,891 tons recorded this year, with a +9.1% growth rate reported across the first six months of 2022 to a total of 34,227,352 tons.
It is important to note that all commodity segments have now returned to pre-Covid volumes. Containerised cargo rose by + 5.4% compared to the second quarter of 2019 and up +2.9% on 2021, conventional traffic is in line with 2019 volumes (+0.9%), but up +3.9% on 2021, solid bulk grew by +3.5% on 2019 and +14% on the previous year, and mineral oils and other liquid bulk return to 2019 volumes, namely, +3.7% and +14.2% respectively.
Total passenger throughput in the Ports of Genoa jumped to 877,709 by +167.8% compared to the second quarter of the previous year. Ferry traffic has returned to pre-Covid throughput levels, up by +0.8% on Q2 2019, and registered 653,001 passengers across the first six months of the year, down only -5.7% on the corresponding period of 2019. With relaxation in Covid restrictions, cruise traffic advanced by +446.2% in the second quarter of 2021, with a total of 335,467 passengers, which broadly breaks down equally between homeport (164,585) and transit (170,882). The number of calls rose to 127 over the last three months, 90 in Genoa and 37 in Savona.
More information
Traffic Ports of Genoa - June 2022 >
Traffic Ports of Savona and Vado - June 2022 >
Traffic Ports of Genova e Pra' - June 2022 >
