Perspectives of future technological developments in the waterborne transportation sector
The waterborne transportation sector (including international shipping, short-sea shipping and inland navigation, which represent three almost completely different contexts although owning obvious similarities) has a higher inertia to possible change compared to other transportation sectors. However, an increased awareness of the environmental impacts of the sector may represent the catalyst that leads shipping to move towards increased efficiency. In addition, the global economic crisis and the high volatility of the fossil fuel prices are now attracting the interest of the entire maritime community, as they attempt to reconcile the environmental and economic objectives related to fuel consumption. The present paper tries to summarise those technological and technical options which are expected to contribute, in the next years, to make the maritime transportation sector more sustainable (cleaner, safer and more secure) and the inland navigation, safer, more reliable and more competitive with respect to the other land-based transportation modes. In the conclusive section the main options analyzed throughout the paper are summarized, providing a few comments on the strategy to follow to foster their introduction. Most of the mentioned technological improvements are expected to be brought by private companies R&D. It is indeed expected that, on one side, the market will pull for the introduction of more energy efficient technologies (in particular for new vessels) and, on the other side, that the necessity to limit the sector fragility to fuel price oscillation will push towards such new technologies (especially for existing vessels to be retrofitted). The focus is mainly on EU Market.
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Supplemental Notes:
- This paper was sponsored by TRB committee AW030(1) AW030 Paper Review Subcommittee
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Corporate Authors:
500 Fifth Street, NW
Washington, DC United States 20001 -
Authors:
- Miola, Apollonia
- Ciuffo, Biagio
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Conference:
- Transportation Research Board 91st Annual Meeting
- Location: Washington DC, United States
- Date: 2012-1-22 to 2012-1-26
- Date: 2012
Language
- English
Media Info
- Media Type: Digital/other
- Pagination: n.p.
- Monograph Title: TRB 91st Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers DVD
Subject/Index Terms
- TRT Terms: Energy conservation; Environmental impacts; Fuel consumption; Shipping; Sustainable transportation; Technological forecasting; Water transportation
- Subject Areas: Energy; Environment; Freight Transportation; Marine Transportation; Planning and Forecasting; I15: Environment; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning;
Filing Info
- Accession Number: 01365610
- Record Type: Publication
- Report/Paper Numbers: 12-3249
- Files: PRP, TRIS, TRB
- Created Date: Mar 20 2012 2:58PM