The Impact of the Trans-European Transport Networks on the Development of Short Sea Shipping

The need to shift goods from road to underused transport capacity led the European Commission to embark on the development of two important policies: one concerning short sea shipping (SSS) and the other concerning the trans-European transport network (TEN-T). While for many years these policies were delineated separately, the introduction of ports and Project 21 in the TEN-T brought these two policies together. In light of this, the aim of this paper is to assess the impact of the TEN-T on SSS. To achieve this, the paper describes the SSS market segment; it puts into a historical perspective the TEN-T policy; and it carries out an assessment of the impact of the TEN-T on SSS.