| Abstract |
The shift of freight from road to other more sustainable transportation modes like waterborne or rail transport is one of the main goals persecuted by the current policy in transportation matters from the European Union. With this mindset, the success of Short Sea Shipping (SSS) becomes fundamental to achieve the ultimate goal of diverting 50% of the medium length freight (and passenger) journals to other means of transport by 2050, set by the European Commission in its latest White Paper on Transport Policy: Roadmap to a Single European Transport Area- Towards a competitive and resource efficient transport system, (COM/2011/0144).
However, after two decades with programs, measures and regulations implemented regulations by the different administrative bodies to promote the shift from road to SSS, little success has been achieved, since despite an increase in volumes transported, the share of SSS has decreased when compared with road haulage.
In fact, there are studies that point at the lack of a clear focus and non-coordination of the measures as one of the reasons for the lack of success. Additionally, a recent study written by the research team behind this proposal for the DG MOVE, also pointed out that the target of the policies may be insufficient, since there are no global measures destined to attract the end-user of the service, the demand. The sporadic existing initiatives targeting the demand, although successful, have been implanted only regionally/locally and have even been discontinued due to lack of EU support, like the Italian Ecobonus. Most of the policies, in fact, are oriented to the supply, either by financing port infrastructure or the introduction of new shipping lines or by simplifying, standardizing and streamlining port and supply chain procedures. To the relative success of current and past policies, it should be added the lack ofcomparative ex profeso models to assess the success of either, the policies already carriedout and the identification of potential new, out-of-the-box policies, regulations and incentives to ease reaching the final goal set up by the European Union.
This proposal, Estrategias regulatorias para fomentar el transporte sostenible a través del Short Sea Shipping (REG4SSEA) presented to the RETOS programme by the Dirección de Investigación Científica y Técnica from the Minsterio de Economía y Competitividad, aims to fill the existing gap in SSS regulation models by building models based on the theory of incentives that characterize the economic relations between the main actors involved in
transport chains with a Short Sea Shipping leg. The framework constructed will then allow quantifying the impact of specific regulatory measures regarding their socio-economic behavior and establish a catalog of measures and recommendations to the competent authorities as a basis for future regulations.
The proposal will be developed by a multidisciplinary research team including naval and transport engineers as well as economists that combine a solid and proven expertise in regulations, business strategies and operative of SSS as well as in developing econometric models applied to the maritime sector. The team is supported by renowned centers intransport policy research, the Industrial and Financial Management and Logistics department
(IFEL) from the University of Gothenburg. |
