Economic and Environmental Benefits of Short Sea Shipping

The study aims to identify the impact, benefits, and drawback of implementing a short sea shipping policy within Greece. Within the paper, arguments have been made for supporting the adoption of the policy, and there have been clear facts presented. The paper also attempts to make comparisons between the different modes of transport available with an aim to show how cost effective and environmentally friendly short sea shipping is to a country. The results presented are backed by previous research that has shown the impact of marine transportation and made comparisons with road or rail transportation.

Short Sea Shipping is defined as the movement of passengers and cargo by sea, between ports that have a shared coastline without crossing an ocean. Short seas shipping has been at the forefront of the European Union's transport policy mainly because it offers the potential to reduce road congestion and reduce pollution (Fafaliou, Lekakou, & Theotokas, 2006). Currently, short seas shipping accounts for about 40% of all freight that is moved within Europe (Denisis, 2009). It has been noted that using short sea shipping services offers a country environmental and economic benefits when compared to the traditional modes of transportation. Using short sea shipping a country can have consistent, timely, and reliable services. Transportation of cargo is vital and having a scheduled timeline for delivery ensure that the cargo arrives as expected and there are reduced cost transportation costs incurred when cargo is delayed. There has been an increase in traffic growth on the roads, and this has resulted in unnecessary congestions that could result in delays on the road (Blonk, 1994). The delays not only increase the cost of transporting goods, but they also have a huge impact on our environment. Currently, Europe suffers severe congestion problems, and there is need to have solutions that would assist in alleviating congestion on the roads. Therefore, there is a need to find a balance between transport volumes and development of society (Paixao & Marlow, 2002). Making use of underestimated transport modes is a good strategy that would ensure there is a balance between environmental protection and growth. Moving the transportation of cargo from the roads to the sea would assist in reducing the current road congestion and also reduce the environmental impact of road transport (Sambracos, Paravantis, Tarantilis, & Kiranoudis, 2004). This report looks into the Greece short sea services with an aim to establish the benefits the country has received from using the service and the drawback to their policy.

According to Eurostat Statistics Explained (2016), it has been established that in 2015 the total gross weight of goods moved within the European Union short sea shipping was 1.8 billion tonnes. This was an increase of 0.9% from the previous year. However, this increase is still lower than what was experienced before the economic downturn of 2009 (Sambracos & Maniati, 2012). Greece has been at the forefront of short sea shipping, and it has been ranked together with the top countries like Netherlands. Greece has the longest coastline within the European Union, and it also possesses the largest number of islands within the region. Therefore, it is not a surprise that it has an extensive number of ports of all kinds. However, not all the ports can be used for cargo movement since they were developed mostly as cruise and passenger ports. It is considerably cheaper for a shipper to use the port of Piraeus as their gateway to Europe rather than Rotterdam, Antwerp, and Hamburg (Douet & Cappuccilli, 2011). The reason being that it takes one week shorter and this reduces the duration it takes for onward cargo transportation, which all contribute towards a lower transportation cost. The reduction in timelines for shipping have a positive impact on the environment and also reduce the amount of pollution (Paixao & Marlow, 2001).

There was a consistent push by the Hellenic Shortsea Ship-owners Association (HSSA) for the government to support the Naiades II action plan by the European Union. The HSSA indicated that the plan would allow the country to strengthen its inland waterways, and it would also reduce the distance between different ports in Greece. The association also aimed at putting Greece on the short sea shipping map within the European Union. By adopting the policy, Greece ensured that it was not left out and it forms part of the legislative process, which would increase the Greek ship's presence within the European waters (Beskovnik, 2006). The adoption of the policy also saw an increase in the management of its different ports from external countries like China. The Chinese companies have already taken over some ports, and they are doing a tremendous job especially for short sea shipping.

There are also environmental benefits that the country would reap. A study carried out on the impact of marine transportation reported that using sea transport increased fuel efficiency, reduced greenhouse emissions, traffic congestion, noise impacts, and infrastructure impact (Beskovnik, 2006). All this was in comparison to road, and rail transportation. The study confirmed that the most environmentally friendly mode of transportation was short sea shipping. The study also clearly indicated that the performance would dramatically increase in the coming years. Reason being that with the potential for increased cargo demand there will also be an increase in transport requirements. The load that a single vessel would carry would be equivalent to between 60 - 100 trucks (Sambracos et al., 2004). This clearly shows how cost effective and environmentally friendly that short sea shipping is within the country.

The study made use of secondary data, which is defined as data collected from academic literature, institutional documents, and explanatory reports. The reason for choosing this method for data collection is based on the vast amount of information required, and primary data would result in large data sets that would make it harder for analysis. The data required for this project would mostly be derived from other sources, and there will not be a need to collect out own data. This would save time because most of the data required is available online, which would make it easy to access and collect. There is ease of accessibility of the information required and since other researchers have already discussed some of the points we wish to investigate, it would not be prudent for us to recollect the data again. Making use of secondary data is a cost saving strategy because there is no need to conduct any data collection, and keying the data. The reduced costs go hand in hand with saving time for data collection. There are vast amounts of data available on the government and European Union website that focus on short sea shipping within Greece. All the data presented on the websites is relevant and up to date making it quite easy for the researchers to collect and analyze the information easily and fast. The researchers would be reanalyzing already analyzed data, which would lead to new insights that had been missed by the previous researchers. There is also the possibility of verifying and confirming the results initially produced.

The use of secondary data does have limitations in that if there was a problem with the data collected we would not be able to identify the issues, and we would work with the data with the gaps. There might be some instances that we will not find all the information we require in order to fulfill our study requirements. These limitations would be noted and recommendations made on how to over the limitations.

All data collected was analyzed using SPSS software. The software made it easy for us to plot and graph the data in order to identify the information. From the results, it was clear that making use of short sea shipping offered the country better economies and allowed the shipper to reduce their overall shipping costs when compared to traditional transportation methods. We did delve deeper into the European Union website for us to retrieve the data we required, and it all pointed out the fact that short sea shipping reduced air pollution tremendously. From the data collected regarding the environmental impact, it was shown that there was a 67% reduction in air pollution when compared to road and rail transport. This confirms the efficacy of short sea shipping. The economic benefits reaped by the country include increased cargo movement and reduced operational costs. The research aimed to establish the effects of using short sea shipping services and the economic and environmental benefits that would be gained by a country. The results of the study do support this fact and the push by the European Union for more countries to adopt short sea shipping is based on credible information and facts. Opening up Europe and reducing the impact on the environment is vital to ensure there is sustainability for society and the economy.