Competitiveness of short sea shipping and the role of port: the case of North Europe

Abstract

In accelerating the integration of the European Union (EU) and achieving more equal modal split, short sea shipping (SSS) has become an increasingly important component in European transport planning. Despite the active promotion by the EU, however, questions have been raised on whether SSS can realistically compete with unimodal road transport as it is required to overcome considerable hurdles, notably efficiency and cohesiveness between different parts of the multimodal transportation chain. This paper attempts to address this issue by undertaking an economic feasibility analysis investigating the potential competitiveness of SSS in the Baltic Region. The generalized costs of different SSS options will be simulated and the potential of different options in maximizing SSS competitiveness will be visualized through applying geographical information system. It is anticipated that this paper can provide an invaluable insight to the development of EU's multimodal transport planning.