Short Distance Sea Shipping

The current regulations (Regulation EU 2024/1679, of June 13) define short sea shipping as the transport of goods and passengers by sea between ports located in the territorial waters of one or more Member States, or between a port located in the waters of the Member States and a port located in the waters of a third country adjacent to the seas bordering the waters of one or more Member States.

The concept includes both domestic and international maritime transport, including feeder services, along the coast, and with islands, rivers, or lakes. The concept also applies to maritime transport between EU Member States and Norway, Iceland, and other countries bordering the Baltic Sea, the Black Sea, and the Mediterranean.

Therefore, short sea shipping includes domestic coastal shipping within each country and, in particular, regular maritime services between mainland ports and island ports within the same country. In Spain, for example, many maritime transport services between the Canary Islands and the Balearic Islands and the Iberian Peninsula fall under the European concept of short sea shipping, and they stand out for their regularity and high frequency.

In any case, with this definition, short sea shipping encompasses practically all non-transoceanic maritime traffic originating from or destined for European ports.

However, in practice, short sea shipping finds its relevance as an active transport policy due to its contribution to the formation of door-to-door sea-land transport chains, where maritime transport is combined with land transport modes to offer a competitive transport solution.

Short sea shipping enhances the intermodal nature of a transport system and promotes the complementarity of maritime and land transport modes.

With this approach, regular maritime services integrated into a door-to-door sea-land chain stand out within short sea shipping, covering a transport route where there is an alternative to the purely land-based chain.

In this context, ro-ro (roll-on/roll-off) regular maritime services are particularly relevant, where road transport uses maritime transport as an alternative infrastructure to the road, without eliminating the truck or semi-trailer, facilitating loading and unloading operations compared to lift-on/lift-off (lo-lo) operations.

Intermodal services are also being established in which semi-trailers and trucks, after completing a sea leg, are transported by land using rail shuttle services.

The aforementioned Regulation emphasizes the concept of the European Maritime Space (EMS), a concept that replaces the previous concept of motorways of the sea, aiming to promote short sea shipping and internal connectivity and to efficiently and sustainably integrate the maritime dimension with other modes of transport. 
The promotion of sustainable and resilient short sea shipping links, particularly with outermost regions and other remote, insular, and peripheral regions, is one of the key elements of the EMS.

In the Euro-Mediterranean Arc, there are regular short sea shipping services between European ports, with the involvement of road transport, operating on a daily basis.

Additionally, in the Mediterranean region, the promotion of short sea shipping must consider the potential connections between the European and African continents. This represents a crucial link in the logistics chains driven by the economic development of the Maghreb (Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria). The network of regular ro-ro, container, and passenger maritime transport services becomes denser each year, resulting from the cooperation between ports in the Euro-Mediterranean area.

In the Atlantic Arc, services are being consolidated between European ports in the northern Atlantic arc (including the North Sea) and Spanish ports located along the Cantabrian coast of the Iberian Peninsula.

Shipowners, shippers, land transport operators, shipping agents, freight forwarders, port operators, and all other stakeholders involved in transport have the opportunity to contribute to a common interest: a multimodal transport alternative and a business opportunity in a European and international setting.

In this context, where a logic of collaboration between the various economic agents that make up the sea-land chain prevails, the Spanish Association for the Promotion of Short Sea Shipping was established in 2002. Puertos del Estado has always played an active role in the Association, holding one of its Vice Presidencies.

Since its creation, the Association has consolidated a series of activities that have contributed to raising awareness about the significance of short sea shipping, the advantages and opportunities it offers, and the necessary coordination between the different actors that form part of the same sea-land chain.

For this reason, the Association continues to uphold its mission as a forum for public and private economic agents to come together in pursuit of the common interest centered around short sea shipping.

The promotion of short sea shipping within a purely national framework is not sufficient due to the door-to-door transport concept. Promotional and informational activities must be coordinated at both ends of the transport chain. On March 7, 2001, the existing promotion centers and the European Commission agreed to form the European Short Sea Network (ESN), with the aim of strengthening the actions of the national centers.

Each national center maintains its independence, although for branding purposes they use a common name in English: Shortsea Promotion Centre – [Country Name]. Thus, the English name for the Spanish Association is Shortsea Promotion Centre – Spain.