Basel as a Transportation Hub

Basel is the only port city in Switzerland and an important transportation hub on the north/south axis. This region was long regarded as the “golden gateway to Switzerland”. However, this term has now disappeared from everyday speech, as global commodities and merchandise trade have come to be handled by companies in other parts of the country, particularly Geneva. However, Basel’s ports have remained indispensable for national goods traffic, both imports and exports, with over four million tons of goods handled here each year. Around a tenth of Switzerland’s entire foreign trade passes through the Swiss Rhine ports.

Logistics companies Contargo and Ultra-Brag at Port Basin 2 have played a major role in this. Contargo, headquartered in Duisburg, was founded in 2004 and has experienced rapid growth since then. Today, the company has 1,200 employees in six countries and its logistics network comprises 24 container terminals, one of which is located in Basel. Contargo offers a spectacular program at Industry Night, letting visitors climb a gantry crane and watch containers being loaded onto trains and ships from the perfect vantage place. Meanwhile, you can explore the terminal and the inner workings of containers on the ground. Last but not least, you can also try out being a crane operator, at least in miniature, moving small containers in the mini-terminal with the mini-crane.

Across the harbour basin you’ll find Ultra-Brag, a logistics service provider from the very start. The company has been storing, transporting, and handling goods for almost 100 years and also operates two inland waterway vessels. AtIndustry Night, we can explore their daily harbour routine, weaving our way between containers, testing out the excavator, and marvelling at the silos. If you want to round off your port experience with a boat ride, board the MS Evolutie (shuttle line F) and enjoy the crossing to the Novartis Pavilion. Inside the culture freighter, the Schweizerische Rheinhäfen share with a small exhibition the Swiss Rhine ports’ work, operations, and history.

In Basel, goods are transferred onto trains and trucks and transported across the rest of Switzerland. Felix Transport is an expert in onward transportation: there’s hardly anything this versatile freight company does not move from A to B. In addition to general cargo and pharmaceutical transports (including medicines), it also offers refrigerated and heated transport (for food, paints, cosmetics, and plants, among other things), hazardous and trade fair goods, as well as cranes. At Industry Night, you can quite literally follow the flow of goods, from paperless scheduling via the transshipment warehouse to overnight loading onto lorries. You’ll finish by taking a seat in a state-of-the-art electric lorry and experience the driver’s perspective.

Basler Verkehrs-Betriebe, our transport partner, has also been operating e-vehicles for a year now and offers exclusive visits to its service centre this year. At the Industry Night, you’ll learn more about how the bus fleet is going electric, what components are used for Drämmli, and what BVB uses their 3D printer for. You can capture your visit with a souvenir photo in the e-bus.

You’ve also got the chance to change your perspective from the person causing the traffic to the one planning it. This is handled by the Bau- und Verkehrsdepartement (BVD, the Department of Construction and Transport). To ensure that nothing goes wrong on the road, functioning and sensibly positioned traffic lights are essential. At the intersection of Riehenring and Feldbergstrasse, you can find out more about how traffic lights work. The BVD is also responsible for many other aspects of urban planning, including landscaping, urban sanitation, and geoinformation, or surveying the city. At Messeplatz, you can immerse yourself in these areas of responsibility.

This exhibition site at the city’s centre is where major events, congresses, and trade fairs take place each year. They all depend on exhibitors and participants being able to travel easily to and from the venue. In the last 30 years or so, the trade fair has been greatly expanded, and in 2013, an additional 220 metre-long exhibition hall was opened, renewing the city’s commitment to Basel as a host for trade fairs. At Industry Night, you can explore the massive infrastructure of the Messe trade fair center, be amazed by its nuanced architecture, and learn more about this historic part of the city of Basel.