Objectives, functions and responsibilities

Goods transport and the full range of associated logistics activities are a key factor in the organization and operation of the productive system. The Goods Transport System has a vital role to play in any strategy for regional development today.

In the case of Andalusia, the comparatively low level of productive development in which the region still remains, and above all its peripheral location within Europe, make it absolutely essential that its Goods Transport System be efficient and consolidated in order for the Andalusian economy to become more competitive and to forge satisfying links with domestic and international markets.

Globalization and the relocation of productive process away from central consumer areas mean that logistics and transport costs are a significant addition to the total cost of products. The efficiency of logistics processes is therefore essential to increase the productivity of our productive system.

The geo-strategic position of Andalusia is an important influence on its logistics strategy:

• Its peripheral situation in Europe means that an efficient system for transporting goods is essential to minimize these additional costs.
• Its central location in terms of maritime traffic between Europe and Asia, America and Africa means that Andalusia has great potential to become an intercontinental logistics hub.

In Andalusia, road transport accounts for 98% of all land transport. The significant levels of congestion from this type of traffic and the specific problems it causes (pollution, driving regulations, danger, etc.), which are greater in Andalusia because of the longer distances, means that basing the growth of commercial trade on road transport is unsustainable in this Community.

In this context, the Junta de Andalucía, like the European Union and Spain, wants to move to a new goods transportation system that is intermodal and can make the most of maritime and rail transport in a balanced use of different systems, with logistics operators to make sure that it runs at an optimal level.

In view of these challenges, the Junta de Andalucía has created the Red Logística de Andalucía [Andalusia Logistics Network] as a way of integrating the region’s logistics and goods transport infrastructures. In virtue of Law 5/2001, which regulated the Logistics Areas of Andalusia, the management and operation of the logistics hubs of the autonomous community corresponds to its administrative branch, through the Public Ports Agency of Andalusia, which exercised these functions through its instrumental arm Red Logística de Andalucía. Its main strategic guidelines for development are:

• Provide Andalusia with a series of 11 regional logistics areas to form the backbone of the goods transport system in the Autonomous Community, to ensure that there are enough suitably specialised areas for the activities of modal transfer, storage, splitting and consolidation of loads, and other logistic activities which offer added value.
• Increase the activity of the commercial ports in Andalusia to improve the capacity for generating economic activity and employment through better connections with the territory they serve as well as enabling foreign trade of the products of Andalucia to increase through maritime transport, the most efficient in the world for large movements of goods.
• Encourage the development of goods transport by train, as the most efficient overall form of land-based transport, through increased use of intermodal corridors and terminals located in the region’s logistics hubs to make it easier for Andalusian operators to make connections abroad.