SEA-RIVER SHIPPING CASE STUDY OF EFFICIENCY
ON THE RHONE-SAONE CORRIDOR
PRESENTATION ONLY
Lopez Charlesa1
a
Laboratoire d’Economie des Transports, CNRS UMR n°5593 ; Université Lumière Lyon 2.
Lyon, France, march 2006
ABSTRACT:
The concept of sea-river shipping is simple: a single vessel sails both coastal and inland waters. Thus, seaport
transhipment is avoided resulting in lower transport costs. However, this concept is limited to certain transport
waterways. On the Rhône-Saône corridor, sea-river shipping can directly connect inland ports with Mediterranean
seaports. The absence of transhipment raises the issue of the competition/complementarity between sea-river
shipping and a transport chain associating inland and maritime transport. Sea-river vessels must abide by certain
specifications, such as draught, height and length, all related to the navigational restrictions on rivers and canals.
The question is: at what threshold, in terms of tonnage, are sea-river vessels more efficient than “barge+shortsea”
transport service? After addressing this question, we determine, for different ports of the Rhône-Saône corridor, the
competitive navigational area of sea-river shipping.
KEYWORDS: multi-modal transport chain, sea-river/short sea shipping, production costs, Rhône-Saône corridor
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Corresponding author:
Laboratoire d’Economie des Transports, Institut des Sciences de l’Homme
14, av Berthelot 69 363 Lyon cedex 07 France
Tel: +33 (0)4 72 72 64 36 - Fax: +33 (0)4 72 72 64 48
E-mail address: charles.lopez@let.ish-lyon.cnrs.fr
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