The railway connections in the new Europe-Asia economic relationships / Le connessioni ferroviarie nelle nuove relazioni economiche Europa-Asia

Up to these last few years – freight transport by sea has been by far the main vector in the industrial relationships relevant to the traffic between Europe and Asia: the container and the availability of huge ships have allowed reducing the cost of transport and generating such scale economy that the cost of shipment per unit has become rather insignificant if compared the value of the transported goods. The railway modality arose in the Europe-Asia relationships just in the last couple of years: the trans-Asian lines connect two continental areas in almost half time and - amongst other things - pass across Eastern Europe and Russia. In this article, the new railway relationships are examined, including a comparative analysis between the economic conditions of these two options.