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Hauts-de-France has an ideal location for managing logistics flows and every kind of transport. And our European DNA gives us a number of competitive advantages:
Due to its strategic location, the Hauts-de-France is particularly strategic for the United Kingdom. The Hauts-de-France Region is the perfect gateway for both the EU and the UK, facilitating almost €300 billion of trade between the two sides of the Channel.
2 transport options are available:
Multimodal platforms are a powerful asset for regions handling logistics flows, since they offer an alternative to 100% road transport. Advantages include:
While Hauts-de-France has many multimodal platforms, the largest is indisputably the Delta 3 hub in Dourges.
Delta 3 is the first and only European-scale trimodal platform, on a single site equipped with:
Together these make Delta 3 a nerve centre of Europe’s logistics network. It has the largest combined transport terminal in France outside the country’s main ports, and lies on one of Europe’s leading freight transport arteries.
While road transport is very cost-competitive, Delta 3’s top differentiator is its ability to consolidate shipments—channelling goods out of ports quickly and facilitating delivery to their final destination.
Road haulage remains the no. 1 choice for goods transport in Hauts-de-France. A dense network serves the entire region. And when you set up here, you’ll enjoy immediate access to major European motorways, starting with the A1—a leading European artery—linking Paris and Brussels.
Although road traffic in Hauts-de-France is heavy, our regional capital, Lille, ranks only 191st among the world’s 387 most congested cities.
| City | Travel time |
|---|---|
| Parma | 12 min 40 s |
| Stockholm | 13 min 50 s |
| Lille | 14 min 10 s |
| Lyon | 15 min 10 s |
| Manchester | 16 min |
| Antwerp | 16 min 30 s |
| Hamburg | 16 min 40 s |
| The Hague | 17 min 40 s |
| Krakow | 18 min10 s |
| Frankfurt | 19 min |
| Brussels | 21 min 50 s |
| Bucharest | 21 min 50 s |
source: Tomtom Traffic Index Ranking 2023
As France’s top rail region, Hauts-de-France handles a major share of goods entering and leaving the European Union by train.
A comprehensive rail network lets users optimise travel for people and goods. From Hauts-de-France, you can reach three European capitals within 90 minutes by TGV high-speed rail.
Hauts-de-France accounts for 10% of France’s total rail network (Source: SNCF Réseau), or 2,755 km of track
Dunkerque is France’s no. 1 rail freight hub, handling 13 million tonnes a year, or 11% of the national total. The modal share of rail traffic here is 30%, well ahead of its French counterparts.
In today’s global markets, having major ports nearby is a huge competitive advantage. In Hauts-de-France you’ll find a truly international port complex with access to world markets from three sites—Dunkerque, Boulogne and Calais.
Port traffic is essential for globalised trade, and the Port of Dunkerque is the third-largest seaport in France and one of the largest in Europe.
Dunkerque-Port’s primary focus is trade with Asia and Northern Europe, but it is also developing shortsea shipping to select ports in Northern Europe, North Africa and the Mediterranean.
1st rail freight hub
in France
1st French port
for coal and ore imports
1st French port
for imports of fruit shipped in containers
1st inland waterway port
in Nord/Pas de Calais
1st LNG terminal
in France (Europe’s 2nd largest)
7th port in Europe's
Northern Range
In 2015, the ports of Boulogne-Sur-Mer and Calais combined to form Boulogne-Calais—a single complex that ranks first in Europe in three areas:
Leader in fishing
Leader in seafood transformation
Leader in cross-Channel maritime transport
Boulogne-sur-Mer is France’s No. 1 fishing port by tonnage, handling 4 key steps in the value chain:
Each year, the port processes 360,000 tonnes of seafood. Its best-in-class supply and distribution logistics and its massive refrigerated warehouse capacity make it the continent’s largest agrifood logistics platform.
Calais is France’s 1st passenger port and Europe’s 2nd Ro-Ro (Roll on – Roll off) port. It handles 1/3 of all sea freight between continental Europe and the UK.
In 2022, the port facilities on the Calais / Dover ferry line will have handled around:
As the shortest and most heavily used sea link between the continent and Britain, the Calais/Dover service plays an essential role in European trade.
Companies that choose river transport know that it’s an ecological, economical, safe and reliable mean of transport. The river network in the Hauts-de-France Region is one of the largest in France, with:
As a reminder, river traffic remains by far the most sustainable mode of freight transport:
CO2/ton.km
for river traffic, compared with 91g for road traffic
%
of all navigable waterways in France
kms
of navigable waterways
%
of all wide-gauge waterways in France
Lille: rd
inland port in France
+ M
transported by river in the Hauts-de-France region in 2022*.
* the equivalent of 375,000 trucks off the road
Container traffic has been growing steadily for several years, thanks to the intensification of river shuttles to connect major ports (Dunkirk, Antwerp, Rotterdam, Terneuzen, Ghent).
The Seine-Nord Europe Canal is the missing link in the Seine-Escaut high-capacity waterway system, connecting the Seine basin to river and canal networks in Belgium and the northern section of the French inland waterway network, from Le Havre to Dunkerque.
Completion of the Seine-Nord Europe Canal—over 100 km in all—will allow users to reap the advantages of a 20,000-km wide-gauge inland waterway network in Europe. It will deliver direct benefits for the Hauts-de-France and Seine basins, by facilitating freight flows from France to Belgium and northward to the Netherlands and Germany. Seamless transport of goods is expected to boost traffic and simplify trade between northern Europe and the ports of Dunkerque, Le Havre and Rouen.
At the center of Europe’s 6 biggest cargo hubs (Paris, London, Brussels, Amsterdam, Frankfurt and Luxembourg), the Hauts-de-France Region offers real opportunities to optimize your air logistics flows. Europe’s 2nd largest airport, Roissy Charles de Gaulle, is less than an hour from Lille by TGV. And if you have air freight requirements, the regional airport (Lille-Lesquin) has an overseas platform and a range of related services.
Located in the heart of the London-Paris-Brussels triangle, Hauts-de-France offers easy access to major international airports in Europe.
Lille-Lesquin airport is a stone’s throw from Greater Lille, allowing fast distribution and easy access for importers and exporters based in Hauts-de-France. It also offers powerful synergies with Lesquin’s Regional Transport Centre, a prime logistics hub in the region.
Overseas freight services at Lille-Lesquin:
sq m
of dedicated office space
sq m
of tarmac reserved for cargo—big enough to handle AN 124s, B 747s and more.
sq m
of dedicated warehouse space for air freight in transit
Paris-Beauvais airport is 60km from Amiens and Compiègne, and 100 km from Paris. It is now France’s 10th largest airport for passenger traffic, with six airlines serving over 60 destinations in 20 countries. New lines are added regularly.
M
of passengers in 2022 compared to 78,000 in 1996
flights
in 2022 compared to 4366 in 2001
passengers in each planes
in 2022 compared to 97 in 2001
