A study on fright villages in Turkey: Example of Mersin Yenice freight village

Freight villages are a need that arises due to increasing trade volume and diversification of production regions as a result of globalization. Increased international goods and services transfer by using heavy goods vehicles, air pollution rising in parallel with fossil fuel consumption and traffic caused the decredation of people's life standards. On the other hand, it has a positive effect on reducing unemployment and maximizing financial activity. In order to eliminate this dilemma with the most appropriate solution, it is planned that heavy vehicles will be taken from the peripheral roads without ever being inserted into urban traffic. Accordingly, the concept of intermodal transportation has been formed and freight villages have been established. In this study characteristics of freight villages which already opened in Turkey and in the world and implemented strategies have been investigated. Performance of all organizational units in logistics villages such as terminal size in logistics villages, storage areas and needs, technological devices, railway connections, container handling customs and so on. Also applications of inputs in existing freight villages were investigated. In order to determine logistics villages functions, interviews with companies are conducted. Thus, main requirements are clarified with logistics related firms. Then a SWOT analysis was performed for a freight village in Mersin. In the assessment made by SWOT analysis, the advantages and weaknesses of the logistic village were determined and thus, the opportunities and threats for the future were revealed. Keywords: Logistic villages, supply chain, intermodal transportation, SWOT