Managing and organizational changes of intermodal network in transition regions: the case of South-East Europe

This article presents managing changes, challenges and possibilities of intermodal nodes and network in a still transitional region of South-East Europe in order to assure sustainable cargo mobility in this part of Europe. The main thesis that transport and logistics sector in Northern and Southern European regions are completely different, using different infrastructure and the degree of automation, and with completely different managing philosophies has been persecuted. Consequently a research of sixteen main port systems in the region has been performed. According to obtained analyses, national states and economies have strong impacts on the development of national infrastructure and managing it. In addition, traditional managing philosophies are still very important, where the state has the power to decide when and how organizational and structural changes will occur. The private capital did not enter the intermodal infrastructure significantly over the last twenty years of transition. This is reflected in scarce competition and slow development. Intermodal nodes must cooperate between each other and develop possible synergies because according to the results obtained almost 90% of all traffic going through ports in South-East Europe is for local economies. The concept of nodal distribution is not present; therefore, logistics optimization is possible and inevitable. For this reason a model of port classification has been worked-out, where all sixteen ports have been classified according to their actual position and regional role.