It's my impression that containerized shipping is less popular in Europe for interior transport. Is this true?
I can only speak for the River Rhine, but in my opinion there is heavy trafic on the river. in 2005 I spend a few days in Koblenz and had a window out on the river and could see that all day long there where more or less two continues lines of ships going up and down the river.
I do live within a 10 min walk of the last lock of the Rhine, after that no more shiping is possble. Even on a weekend, you rarely have to wait longer than 10 minutes for a ship to arrive.
On the other hand Rhine even means proximity to quite a lot of people in Europe, e.g. Benelux, quite a part of Germany (and especially the heavy industry part), up to Switzerland, and e.g. in Spain, UK and Italy many people life close to the coast, so that waterway inner country transport may not be so import.
I think in the article was something about the Danube, too. There is a part of the Danube in Germany, where the upgrading to a waterway was not the highest standard and it is currently not planned. Environmentalists don't want that further upgrading, either, after all changing a river is quite an interference with the river as a biotope. Der Amerikaner ist die Orchidee unter den MenschenVolker Pispers
