River and multimodal

Inland waterway transport of containers between Benelux ports and their hinterland has existed since the mid-1970s. On the Rhine route, river operators now hold a third of the market compared with road and rail, and carry an estimated 2 to 3 million TEUs. The Alsatian ports of Strasbourg and Mulhouse have been offering regular services to Rotterdam and Antwerp since the mid-1980s. In 2004, they handled around 180,000 TEUs.

In the rest of France, container transport has been developing on regular lines since 1994, initially in the Nord – Pas-de-Calais region and on the Seine, and more recently on the Rhône. In 2005, some 400,000 TEU were carried on the French waterway network (figure