Assessing the Potential of Short Sea Shipping and the Benefits in Terms of External Costs: Application to the Mediterranean Basin

Antonio Comi and Antonio Polimeni
Additional contact information
Antonio Comi: Department of Enterprise Engineering, University of Rome Tor Vergata, 00118 Rome, Italy
Antonio Polimeni: Department of Enterprise Engineering, University of Rome Tor Vergata, 00118 Rome, Italy

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 13, 1-17

Abstract: The paper aims to investigate short sea shipping services as a competitive, sustainable freight transport system which is able to respond to economic, social and environmental needs. An assessment methodology is proposed which considers an aggregate discrete choice model, simulating the split between the competitive transport alternatives in the Mediterranean basin. The proposed methodology was used to assess the potential of short sea shipping (SSS) and the net benefits deriving from lower external costs in the north-western Mediterranean basin. Two future scenarios are considered: introduction of new SSS services as envisaged by current EU projects and plans, and the introduction of new SSS routes and an increase in frequencies of existing services. Significant results were obtained in terms of shifting freight traffic from the road network as well as external benefits.

Keywords: short sea shipping; SSS; Ro-Ro; freight transport; freight demand; modal choice; discrete choice models; scenario assessment; Mediterranean area (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/13/5383/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/13/5383/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:13:p:5383-:d:379816

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().