International Journal

on Marine Navigation

and Safety of Sea Transportation

Volume 3

Number 1

March 2009

Sustainability of Motorways of the Sea and

Fast Ships

F.X. Martinez de Oses & M. Castells i Sanabra

Technical University of Catalonia, Barcelona, Spain

1 INTRODUCTION

According to the mid-term review of the EU White

Paper on Transport, Short Sea Shipping is expected

to grow at a rate of 59% (metric tonnes) between

2000 and 2020. If we consider that the overall ex-

pected increase in both freight exchanges and vol-

ume is 50%, sea transport appears as one of the most

feasible options to reduce traffic congestion on Eu-

ropean roads. However, this alternative has not been

definitely adopted because of technical, administra-

tive and legal reasons. Moreover, society still re-

gards maritime transport as a slow, inefficient mode

since shippers do not yet offer the best value for

money. Infrastructures need to be balanced by using

tariff principles which reflect the exact external costs

incurred by these infrastructures. Along this line of

action, in 1998 the European Union published the

White Paper on Fair Payment for Infrastructure Use:

A Phased Approach to a Common Transport Infra-

structure Charging Framework in the EU COM

(1998) 466. This paper analyzes selected intermodal

transport chains and pollutant emissions from differ-

ent power output ships, and compares them with

those generated by road transport. These emissions

are then translated into environmental costs, based

on existing quantification databases. In some cases,

maritime transport proves to be a better alternative,

justifying the granting of some kind of environmen-

tal bonus by the administration to promote the sea

option. The paper concludes with a brief discussion

on how to best implement this bonus to achieve a re-

al balance between transport modes.

2 SCENARIO

In 1998, the European Union published the White

Paper on Fair Payment for Infrastructure Use: A

Phased Approach to a Common Transport Infra-

structure Charging Framework in the EU COM

(1998) 466, where “the user pays” and “the polluter

pays” principles were established. It was initially

suggested that dues charged on vehicles having a

maximum payload of over 12 metric tonnes should

be based on marginal infrastructure costs per kilo-

metre and marginal urban congestion costs. The

first tariff scheme for infrastructure use proposed in

ABSTRACT: The European transport policy undertakes to enhance sustainability in transport in order to

boost economic activities in the whole EU. The reduction of pollutant emissions and a better balance among

modes of transportation to cut road congestion are the pillars of the above policy. These factors are encourag-

ing public and private stakeholders to use the freight maritime alternative more extensively. Short sea ship-

ping is considered the quickest way to reach sustainability. Another advantage of ships over trucks and trains

is that vessels consume less fuel as a result of the relatively low speeds at which they travel. However, in-

creasingly faster ships are in a position to compete with trucks, but the former’s greater power demand and

consumption rate result in higher pollutant emission levels which, in turn, lead to the loss of their environ-

mental advantage over road transport. This problem is analyzed below.

studies conducted in Europe like DESIRE (2001)

and INFRAS (2004) was meant to be implemented

in Germany in 2003 with an initial tariff of 0.17

€/km on all vehicle and truck units with a maximum

loading capacity exceeding 12 metric tonnes passing

through or delivering goods in Germany. However,

after repeated delays, it was in 2005 that the scheme

was launched with a tariff of 0.124 €/km. In 2007

the average rate increased to 0.135 €/km and tariffs

were reviewed again in October 2008. As far as

waste gas emissions are concerned, charges depend

on the exact number of kilometers travelled on paid

motorway sections, number of vehicle axes and en-

gine class. Regarding pollutant emissions, in 1988

the European Parliament adopted the first Euro regu-

lation, followed by Euro II, III and IV. Euro V and

VI are increasingly stricter regulations on vehicle

pollutant emissions, in particular particle emissions

and nitrogen oxides (NOx) limits. Coming into force

on 1st September 2009, Euro V establishes an 80%

decrease in particle emission limits, which implies

the need for future fitting of particle filters in vehi-

cles. Euro VI will come into force in 2014 and im-

pose limits of up to 68% of current levels on oxides.

Maritime transport emissions are mainly regulated

by the MARPOL Convention and some specific Eu-

ropean regulations. The new directives concerning

and NO

maximum emission levels aim to re-

duce these chemical compounds, which will be the

weak point of maritime transport in the future. Of all

modes of transport, the maritime one is responsible

for the largest amount of SO

emitted into the at-

mosphere, only to be compensated by the use of low

sulphur content fuels or exhaust gas cleaning sys-

tems. However, sulphur emissions from maritime

transport account for 6% to 12% of total anthropo-

genic emissions only (Chengfeng 2007). Despite this

scenario, in 2000 about 44% of total NOx emissions

into the atmosphere in Europe were attributable to

road transport and 36% to maritime transport

(TERM 2002). Road transport is the main source of

emissions, contributing 91.7% of total EU

transport greenhouse gas emissions. When including

sea shipping in a breakdown of transport-related

emissions, it appears that in Europe maritime

transport accounts for only about 6% of total green-

house gas emissions, which explains the interest in

reducing the share of road transport. Annex VI to the

MARPOL Convention and the NOx technical code

amendments were approved at the Maritime and En-

vironment Protection Committee (MEPC) 58th ses-

sion (October 2008), following the draft amend-

ments on prevention of air pollution from ships

agreed by the IMO Sub-Committee on Bulk and

Liquid Gases (BLG) at its 12

session, held in Feb-

ruary, and further agreed at the MEPC 57

session

(April 2008).

2.1 Environmental credentials of sea transport

Maritime transport is one of the least pollutant

modes. Additionally, it contributes to the reduction

of traffic congestion, accidents and noise costs on

European roadways (European Commission 2001).

This justifies support actions to intermodal chains

with marine sections including short sea shipping

links as a way to reach more sustainable mobility

within Europe. Nevertheless, a transport policy

based solely on tariff measures will not provide the

desired modal shift because users must see alterna-

tive transport modes as an efficient and quality

choice. All administrative bodies should work coop-

eratively to improve intermodal infrastructures such

as port and rail intermodal links or to simplify or

speed up all document dispatch processes in mari-

time transport.

3 STUDY OF THE MARINE ALTERNATIVE

Due to patent medium-term rail transport limitations

generated by the lack of coordination among all in-

volved countries in terms of investment, mutual

recognition of engineering licenses, unification of

signal systems and standardization of electrical

power distribution systems, short sea shipping is

considered the best short-term option. The concept

of short sea shipping is defined in the COM (1999)

317 “The Development of Short Sea Shipping in Eu-

rope” final document as the transport by sea of

goods and passengers, between ports geographically

placed in Europe or between those ports and other

ones located in coastal countries of the closed seas

surrounding Europe. This means that this mode of

transport integrates the following aspects: roll on roll

off traffic, general cargo traffic including containers,

liquid and solid bulk and even neobulk traffic, pas-

senger transport and feeder services.

In this sense, all selected target routes, i.e. the

five most efficient in INECEU (2005) and ANTAR-

ES (2007) studies, leave from Iberian Peninsula

ports and have different destinations in Western Eu-

rope (Table 1).

Table 1: Routes obtained from the ANTARES study. Source:

own data.

______________________________________________

Route Origin Destination

____________ _____________

Origin Port Port Destination

______________________________________________

Route 1 Madrid Valencia Naples Naples

Route 2 Barcelona Barcelona Civitavec. Rome

Route 3 Alicante Alicante Genoa Milan

Route 4 Burgos Tarragona Genoa Milan

Route 5 Zamora Gijon Hamburg Berlin

_____________________________________________

Keeping in mind the above intermodal routes, the

following criteria were used in our study:

1 Costs were divided into two main categories: ex-

ternal environmental costs, derived from local air

pollution, global warming and noise pollution,

and external non-environmental costs, derived

from accidents and traffic congestion.

2 To evaluate the impact of the evolution of

transport-related emissions, the scenario consid-

ered is a future hypothetical improved condition

where future stricter regulations, like Euro IV, are

applied to road (in force as of 2006 for new

trucks and shown in table 6) and maritime

transport, resulting in a 10% decrease in all cur-

rent emissions, except for S, SO2 and NOx.

Table 2: Emission rates for diesel Euro IV road and sea

transport. Source: own, based on ICF model from REALISE,

2005.

______________________________________________

Emitted gases Road Short Sea Shipping

____________ _____________

Euro IV (g/Kg fuel) Improved (g/Kg

fuel)

______________________________________________

0.114 30

28.125 19.36

CO 5.75 8.1

Nm-VOC 2.316 2.466

PM 0.45 6.84

0.095 0.099

3,323 2,853

S 0.05 15

_____________________________________________

3 The cargo capacities of the selected Ro/Pax ships

are considered, bearing in mind that they are real

ships serving short sea shipping traffics in SW

Europe. The three ships are an example of each

speed group: conventional Ro/Pax vessels are

represented by ship A, fast Ro/Pax vessels by

ship B and high speed craft by ship C (Table 3)

(Martínez de Osés & Castells 2008). Cargo ca-

pacity was calculated dividing the ship’s total lin-

ear capacity by 19.5 meters (European Commis-

sion 2002), including the number of trucks

(assumed FEUs) that the ship is capable of carry-

ing. Cargo is measured in FEU (very close to

trailer length) as it is the common unit of freight

in sea and road legs, assuming the container to be

filled to 60% of its full capacity (Martínez de

Osés & Castells 2008).

Table 3: Main particulars of selected ships. Source: own, based

on shipping company information.

______________________________________________

Particulars Conventional Fast Conventional. HSC

_________________________ __________

Ship A Ship B Ship C

______________________________________________

Type RoRo/Pax RoRo/Pax Ro/Pax

DWT (Tm) 13274 5717 1076

GT 25058 23933 8089

Speed (knots) 18 27 40

Capacity (l.m.) 2600 1700 450

Trailers (19.5m) 133 97 23

Cars (units) 124 100 123

Passengers 500 1400 1291

Power (kW.) 24000 31680 32800

_____________________________________________

4 The main engine specific fuel consumption rate is

strongly affected by the installed propulsion sys-

tems, such as engine, gear, shaft and propulsion

arrangements. Nevertheless, modern diesel en-

gines use half the fuel consumed daily by old in-

efficient steam engines with the same power out-

take (Endresen 2007).

Although the total fuel consumption rate depends

on the engine’s maximum output, the average power

is assumed to be 85% of MCR (Maximum Continu-

ous Rate) of installed power. However, the average

main engine load and speed vary dramatically for

different ship types. Some authors have reported an

average load of 80% MCR based on statistical data.

For example, bulk carriers tend to have slightly low-

er average values (72% MCR) than tankers (84%

MCR). Accordingly, load can range from about

60% MCR up to 95% MCR for the analysed ships

(Floedstroem 1997). For our purposes, engine load

was fixed to 80% of engine load when sailing and

20% for time spent at ports due to operations (En-

dresen 2007).

Table 4: Hourly consumption based on engine load and power.

Source: own data.

______________________________________________

Type of ship Speed Consumption (Tm/hour)

___________ _____________

In knots 80% MCR 20% MCR

______________________________________________

Conventional 20 3.84 0.96

Fast conventional 27 8.068 2.017

High speed craft 40 5.25 1.312

_____________________________________________

5 The emission factors considered in our study are

taken from the REALISE database. The ad-

vantage in CO2 emission factors in maritime

transport lies in that ships consume less power

than trucks to carry the same amount of cargo.

However, as ship speed increases, the difference

can be negligible and even negative. Additional-

ly, because of the sulphur content of marine fuels,

sulphurous emissions are still the weak point of

maritime transport. A global average of 2.5% sul-

phur content is assumed, ranging from 0.5% for

distillates to 2.7% for heavy fuel. We must em-

phasize that high-viscosity heavy fuel tends to

have higher sulphur values than low-viscosity

fuels. At this point, the question arises whether it

is still feasible to propose an environmental bonus

for trucks boarding a ship as ships have lesser

pollutant effects per tonne and kilometre travelled

than trucks.

4 PRELIMINARY RESULTS

Conventional ships are the most efficient type as far

as pollutant emissions are concerned because they

have the lowest consumption rates but also the low-

est developed speed. Table 5 compares external cost

savings of each ship type at only 60% of cargo ca-

pacity with those of road-only transport resulting

from road distance not being covered.

Table 5: Total external costs of the unimodal or sea-only in-

termodal solutions, taking the 200 g/h kW consumption rate for

the Ro/Pax ships A, B and C in route 1 (Source: own, based on

pricing costs from REALISE, 2005).

______________________________________________

Type of ship Potential saving Potential saving

____________ _____________

€ / FEU € / FEU x km

______________________________________________

Conventional 310.9 0.1477

Fast conventional -16.08 -0.0076

High Speed Craft -1,542.97 -0.733

_____________________________________________

These external cost savings could justify the pro-

posal of an environmental bonus to encourage

freight transport companies to ship their trucks in-

stead of travelling the same route by road only. In

the case of the fastest ships, their smaller cargo ca-

pacity results in noticeably poor environmental per-

formances, leading to even negative saving rates

compared with truck emissions for the same route.

Keeping in mind only the scenario where ship A is

compared with road transport as being the only ma-

rine option providing external costs savings, the bo-

nus potentially offered by the administration to the

truck company would be a maximum of 14.7 cents

per kilometre not travelled by the truck. Nonethe-

less, some authors (e.g. García Menéndez, Martínez

and Piñero 2003, and Pérez 2004) found that, as far

as modal shift is concerned, the maritime share

would grow in a higher proportion as result of an in-

crease in road transport cost rather than a decrease in

the price of freight. Crossed elasticity in the choice

of maritime transport over road transport is about

1.075%; that is, the probability of selecting maritime

transport increases by 1.075% for each 1% of road

transport cost increase. An improvement of customer

service or faster customs procedures in maritime

transport results in an elasticity rate of about

0.641%. This means that a reduction in freight

transport costs of approximately 1% would increase

the probability of choosing sea transport by 0.641%

only.

5 CONCLUSIONS

The intermodal option provides hardly any external

cost savings for the five routes because the differ-

ence between road and sea distances is sometimes

negligible. In addition, road legs in intermodal

chains are too long, and increasing oil prices pose a

threat to high speed crafts, which are heavily penal-

ized for their high consumption rates, which lead to

higher operational costs. Furthermore, there is con-

cern about poor environmental performance. Con-

ventional ships are the most environmentally friend-

ly ones, the difference between fast conventional

and high speed crafts being bigger than between

conventional and fast conventional ships. This slight

advantage of conventional ships would be eliminat-

ed if stricter regulations (Euro VI) for road transport

were applied, particularly if no other measure is tak-

en for sea transport. However, the better environ-

mental performance of ships serving specific inter-

modal transport routes could justify the allocation of

public grants as an economic incentive to convince

users to choose maritime transport. An example is

the environmental bonus offered by the Italian gov-

ernment in several routes to endorse trailers and

trucks boarding ships instead of covering routes by

road only. This action has also been taken by the

Basque autonomous government in Spain.

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