Hutchison Ports BEST, member of the Hutchison Ports group, is pleased to announce the launch of the first rail service that connects the Catalan capital with Miranda de Ebro in the northern region of the Iberian Peninsula. This new regular service with a capacity of 72 TEU will be managed by the logistics operator, Hutchison Logistics Spain, will gradually increase in frequency in the coming months.

The Miranda de Ebro installations, which will be fully managed by Hutchison Logistics Spain, will offer, in addition to purely railway services, warehousing services, container emptying and filling services, as well as haulage services.

From Miranda de Ebro, Álava, Burgos, La Rioja, Santander, Palencia and Asturias are areas that will be served, among others.

With this new connection, Hutchison Logistics Spain offers exporters the possibility for their goods to reach the North of the Peninsula via the Mediterranean, with a decrease in transit time, adding value to the final customer.

With this new service, along with the existing ones, BEST extends its multimodal offer, placing the Terminal at the forefront of Mediterranean intermodal terminals, making it a competitive alternative to serve the logistics market of both the peninsula, as well as the rest of Southern Europe. In recent years, the expansion of markets that can be accessed from the Terminal has increased greatly, representing great business opportunities for our clients.

The new service Barcelona – Miranda de Ebro, comes in addition to those that BEST regularly operates with origin / destination the main Spanish cities as well as the South of France. Amongst these are: Zaragoza, Madrid, Pamplona, Tarragona, Selgua (Huesca), Villafría, Bordeaux and Bayonne.

Rail traffic in BEST has increased significantly in recent years, going from 10% of full import and export container traffic in 2010, to 20% at present. In other words, an increase of almost 300% from 36,000 TEUs in 2010 to more than 140,000 TEUs in 2016.

This upward trend in the rail market has been reflected globally, nevertheless, BEST has become an undisputed leader, exceeding 60% of the Port of Barcelona’s market share.

BEST believes in railway development, continuously improving different management and operational processes, so that in coming years, this upward trend will continue for both rail and sea traffic.

Spanish version click here.