On June 18 and 19, the Port Autonome de Strasbourg hosted the first meeting of the AIVP River Port Cities working group. Led by Bruno Delsalle, General Manager, and Noémi Mené, Project Manager in charge of the working group, the group brought together some fifteen people to identify the specific challenges facing river port cities, and to begin exploring possible solutions.
On the first day, presentations from the floor were followed by a lively exchange of views, demonstrating the issues shared by participants despite the diversity of local contexts. The Port of Strasbourg presented its strategic plan, inviting ports to be a force of proposition in the composition of the city-port relationship, even going so far as to talk of reversing the perspective and speaking of a port-city relationship. The Compagnie Nationale du Rhône (CNR) presented the challenges of governance and the partnership charter to the Port of Lyon. HAROPA Port was able to share its questions on the specificities of the management of its river section.
In the afternoon, the city of Paris presented its challenges in terms of sharing the use of quays and waterways, with the increasingly relevant issue of bathing in the city.
At the end of the day, participants were able to visit the North Terminal, watch the gantry cranes being maneuvered, and discover the Capitainerie, the area earmarked for a Port Center.
On the morning of June 19, group members boarded a Batorama boat, a PAS subsidiary, for a two-hour tour from the city center to the Rhine, going from the South Terminal to the North Terminal.
After this technical visit, the participants hit the road again, with their heads full of ideas.
Over the next few months, AIVP will draw up a roadmap for this group, summarizing the exchanges of the two days to guide further work. The idea is to set up regular virtual exchanges, as well as one physical meeting a year. Some ports have also expressed an interest in using the AIVP Agenda 2030 self-diagnostic tool, soon to be available for river ports.
Thanks once again to the Port of Strasbourg for its warm welcome and to our members for their commitment!
