Europe’s largest and most modern green concept land-based intermodal terminal has been built in record time, with a private investment of more than HUF 40 billion, in Fényeslitke, in the immediate vicinity of the Hungarian-Ukrainian border.
Located at the junction of the wide and standard gauge railway tracks, the East-West Gate (EWG) can handle up to one million 20-foot containers per year and is suitable for loading trucks and conventional road semi-trailers onto rail. The EWG also has a significant capacity for transshipment of agricultural products, hence could soon become the largest rail hub for Ukrainian food exports
The terminal can handle up to one million twenty-foot containers (TEUs) per year, making it the largest such facility on the continent in terms of theoretical capacity and area. The terminal is capable of trans loading containers between wide gauge and standard gauge, as well as between rail trains and trucks. EWG is also suitable for loading trucks and conventional road semi-trailers onto rail. This will allow to shift as much as possible of the freight traffic arriving by truck at the EU border to rail, in line with the EU’s climate objectives. EWG’s cranes are ATEX and ADR certified, so they can also trans load special materials such as gas container tanks and chemicals.
EWG is the first in Europe to control cranes remotely using 5G technology. The terminal has a 41-metre wide and two 28-metre-wide giant cranes on rails, as well as a 20-metre-high rubber-tyre crane. The cranes, supplied by Austrian company Künz, are equipped with 20 high-resolution cameras, which, with the help of 5G, can be viewed in real time at the centre of the terminal and can react in the same way, without delay, so that they can control the cranes as if they were working in the crane cabin. The private 5G network required for this was built by Vodafone Hungary and the network equipment was supplied by Huawei.
A realistic virtual twin of the terminal (Digital Twin) has also been created, which tracks the processes and operations of the logistics centre in real time and in 3D – the movement of trains, trucks, cranes, delivery vehicles and goods. Developed in cooperation between a Hungarian start-up and EWG, the solution is a world first in terms of complexity. MaxWhere collects, processes, and displays information from all the subsystems of the logistics centre in real time, helping to plan, optimise and increase efficiency in accordance with the principles of Industry 4.0, using the terminal’s own 5G network.