In the presence of the minister of transport Werner Faymann as well as the Viennese mayor Michael Häupl, the ÖBB Infrastruktur Bau AG held the ground-breaking ceremony for the expansion of the cargo terminal in the Viennese port. With total investments of 122 million Euros, the connection between the Donaulände-/Donauuferbahn and the cargo port Freudenau will be established on the one hand, and on the other hand the capacity of the container terminal will be doubled with reconstructions and new buildings to about 400.000 TEU per year.
Austria’s capital will thereby be in a position to offer an ultra-modern cargo terminal, which is supposed to serve as hub for transports between the seaports and the countries in Central Europe. Advance financing by the city of Vienna provided the basis for the fast realisation of the project.
The background to this large-scale investment is the strong increase of container traffic in the Wiener Hafen. Since 2000, the volume has more than doubled. At present 50 container trains, which regularly connect Vienna with the seaports Rotterdam, Bremerhaven and Hamburg as well as with Duisburg, Budapest and Bratislava, are handled every week.