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Nord-Pas de Calais, a strategic position

The Nord-Pas de Calais is at the heart of Europe and, thanks to the TGV, Lille is less than 2 hours of most major European capitals. In addition, a remarkable combination of various modes of transport (rail, air, sea, river and road) it can offer all the logisitic.


1st provincial railways

Its 1 447 km of tracks it can carry an annual 15 million tonnes via the 122 freight stations in the region including 16 large. The offer daily TGV from Lille provides many services: Paris, Roissy Charles de Gaulle, London, Brussels, Cologne and Amsterdam.

The Channel Tunnel, infrastructure of primary importance, linking France and the United Kingdom.

A junction between seven European capitals

560 km of motorways bring the region to reach the wheel of La Hague, Brussels, Luxembourg, Bonn, Geneva, Paris and London (via the Channel Tunnel). Of the millions of tons of cargo in the region, more than four-fifths using the road. The future link Amiens - Lille - Belgium (A24) will offer an alternative to the current axis Paris - Lille (A1) and improve the accessibility of the region to the Benelux countries.

Three major seaports (Dunkirk, Calais, Boulogne) and river network of the densest France

680 km of canals of which 190 km wide gauge connect the region to major North European ports: Dunkirk, Antwerp and Rotterdam. Particularly suitable for bulk transport, inland waterway transport is increasing in the region, at a pace far faster than national level. Its development will be a further rise with the implementation of the Seine-Nord.

An airport-sized European

850 000 passengers and more than 38 000 tonnes of goods transported annually by the airport of Lille-Lesquin. Several daily flights can join the main French cities throughout the year. Ll'aéroport Lille-Lesquin also allows quick access to major international airports.

A region-based multimodal over 20 regional platforms

Nord-Pas de Calais has a coastline consisting of three additional ports (Dunkirk, Calais, Boulogne) and a network of platforms leading inland (river ports of Lille and Valenciennes Béthune platform trimodal Delta 3 to Dourges). All these infrastructures are connected between them by the motorway network and channels Tall creating excellent conditions for business to Logisitic in Europe.

A pole of global competitiveness

The competitiveness cluster with a global i-Trans meets the key actors of the french rail and innovative transport systems. Buoyed by the Land Transport Promotion Association, the project brings together 41 companies, 19 research organizations and training and more than 2 000 students directly involved.
The goal of i-Trans cluster is to support projects that contribute to the transport of tomorrow, based on four issues: the intelligence, innovation, intermodality and interoperability.