Maritime Economics & Logistics

, Volume 6, Issue 3, pp 236–251 | Cite as

No Need for Speed in Short Sea Shipping

  • J F F Becker
  • A Burgess
  • D A Henstra
Policy Perspective (Non Peer-Reviewed)
First Online:

Abstract

The European Community has an established policy of encouraging sustainable transport, such as multimodal transport operations involving road, rail, inland waterway and short sea shipping (SSS). To stimulate modal-shift to short sea shipping, the European Union is seeking for extra policy actions. One of the research topics in the 5th Framework Programme for Research and Development (FP5) is the potential benefits in lead-time of deploying high-speed vessels (HSV) in short sea shipping freight transport. This paper discusses the policy recommendations of the FP5 project ‘SPIN-HSV’. It analyses the European SSS freight market, studies the need for deploying high-speed vessels to speed up SSS transport along the supply chain, and suggests the main topics of E.U. policy in the near future. We conclude that Community policy should not focus on promoting HSV for short sea freight transport. If there is a need for speed in SSS, market parties will seek HSV solutions by themselves. Community policy should primarily focus on promoting SSS in general in order to achieve further growth in SSS transport volumes.

Keywords

Maritime policy modal-shift Ro/Ro transport feeder transport European logistics 
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Notes

Acknowledgements

The paper has been based on the findings of three complimentary tasks – as part of 10 work packages in total – of the SPIN-HSV project. The project was carried out by 22 project partners from nine European countries. We would like to thank all SPIN-HSV partners for their input in the FP5 project. In particular, we would like to thank SAM, ISL and SAITEC for their close participation in one or more of work packages 1.1, 5.5 and 5.6. Views and opinions expressed herein are those of the authors and ought not to be construed as necessarily committed to the European Commission.

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Copyright information

© Palgrave Macmillan Ltd 2004

Authors and Affiliations

  • J F F Becker
    • 1
  • A Burgess
    • 1
  • D A Henstra
    • 1
  1. 1.TNO Inro, Institute for Traffic and TransportThe Netherlands

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