Transport

The Metropolitan Region of Nuremberg has an outstanding, close-linked infrastructural network for road, air, rail and waterborne traffic. The local public transport system Verkehrsverbund Großraum Nürnberg (VGN) offers fast connections and short journeys within the region.

Nuremberg has always been a traffic hub of European dimensions and an area of innovative transport technology. With reunification and the opening of the borders to East Europe at the beginning of the nineties the region once again moved back into the centre of the pan-European economic area.

The special role which it has taken over can be explained with an assertion: The EU classified Nuremberg as one of the two gateway regions which has been awarded a special status, especially when seen from the angle of the EU's expansion eastwards.

To be able to do justice to these task an excellent transport infrastructure will be needed in addition to the economic-geographic location and a large amount of transport-technological know-how. The gateway region possesses both to a high degree.

With 80 flight connections daily, Nuremberg is directly connected with all European industrial metropolises. The tri-mode Güterverkehrszentrum Hafen Nürnberg [Nuremberg Freight Transport Center] is one of the largest logistic centers in Germany with some 260 logistics corporations employing more than 5,000 people. Nuremberg is also at the intersection of the ICE high speed railway network and has a six-point motorway junction at the intersection of important European motorways.

At the point of intersection of major motorways:

• Paris – Prague
• Warsaw – Berlin – Rome
• London – Brussels – Frankfurt – Vienna – Budapest
• Stockholm – Hanover – Zurich – Milan
• An important point of interchange for ICE and international long-distance rail routes
• Nuremberg International Airport
• Main-Danube Canal

Shipping

• Goods Transport Centre bayernhafen Nuremberg
  The GVZ bayernhafen Nuremberg is one of the leading tri-mode logistics locations in Europe. It is linked with the trans-European networks (TEN) of the transport carriers road, rail and water and combines these infrastructures in an ideal way for multimode transport chains.
  
  With an annual transhipment tonnage of more than 10 million tons the GVZ bayernhafen Nuremberg is the largest and most significant multi-functional logistics centre in Southern Germany. 260 firms from the branches of haulage, transport, transhipment, storage, packaging, recycling, industry, trade and logistics services are located on an area of 337 hectares in the bayernhafen Nuremberg where more than 5,300 people have found work. In the bayernhafen Roth, with its 5.8 hectare area, undertakings specialising in the sectors of recycling and building materials are active.
  
  Customer-oriented systematic linkage of the location's ship, railway and HGV transport carriers is being consequently driven ahead by making forward-looking investments in infrastructure and development and by sustaining development in transport. The target is to open up and develop both growth potential in the globally-booming container transport and the potential in moving from the road to the environmental-friendly transport carriers of rail and water. The most important infrastructural measure is the realisation of a powerful and tri-mode transhipment plant in combined carrier traffic (KV) with an investment volume of 31 million Euro. With an annual transhipment capacity of about 155,000 loading units (container, HGV body erections) and the partial extension of a third harbour basin, the three transport carriers will be brought together even more efficiently.
  
  In a further extension stage it is planned to move the present inner city transhipment railway head belonging to the DB (German Federal Railway) into the GVZ bayernhafen Nuremberg. The realisation of this second module will probably be at the end of 2008.
• Main-Danube Canal
  Port position on Main-Danube Canal, the 3,500 km European waterway linking the North Sea and the Black Sea (13 countries accessible by waterborne traffic from Nuremberg).
• Nuremberg Harbour and Logistics Centre
  With a total turnover of more than 10 million tons a year the the multimodal freight and logistics centre in the Nuremberg harbour area is the best developed river port and largest complex (337 hectares) of its kind in Southern Germany. It also has the third-largest integrated local transport system in Germany with a network of 12,000 km² linking more than 300 local communities and serving over 600,000 passengers a day.

The public transport association of Nuremberg and surroundings

One of the largest local public transport systems covering 12,000 km2 and transporting 600,000 passengers each day. High-speed railway/underground/tram network covering 150 km.

The VGN Verkehrsverbund Großraum Nürnberg (Public Transport Association) started on 27th September 1987. In the course of the past few years the public transport association has developed into an essential component of mobility in Franconia. With an area of 12,000 square kilometres it is the third largest transport association in Germany.

Some 2.2 million people live in the association's area which covers six independent cities and eleven districts in Central and Upper Franconia as well as in the Upper Palatinate. 90 different transport undertakings operate approximately 540 routes in the area. There are three underground lines, six trams and about 500 bus routes in addition to the 20 regional and three suburban train lines.

It is the increase in the number of omnibus routes from the original 118 to 500 which makes clear the transport association's request also to strengthen local public transport in the region to the advantage of passengers. That these efforts are appreciated by the population becomes obvious by reading that the number of passengers carried have increased from 109 to 190 million.

Air traffic

The Nuremberg airport offers non-stop connections to the most important European industrial centres as well as large airports with lifting capacities. Reliable direct connections to Frankfurt, Munich, Zurich, Vienna, Amsterdam, Paris, London, Copenhagen and Istanbul guarantee connecting flights to more than 300 destinations all over the world. New destinations in Eastern Europe such as Budapest together with a growing share of low fare flights give constant new impulses to accessibility by air.

• Non-stop flights to 60 destinations in 21 countries
• More than 70 non-stop flights a day to all key European business metropolises
• Several flights a day to the international longdistance flight hubs in Frankfurt, Munich, Amsterdam, Paris, Zurich and London
• Short distances, fast check-in: only six kilometres from the centre of Nuremberg, direct underground link taking passengers to Nuremberg Main Railway Station/City Centre in just twelve minutes
• More than 4 million travellers per year
• Award 2008: Best German airport