PortEconomics.eu co-director Theo Notteboom gave an introduction and moderated a session on ‘Container shipping lines: short sea and intra-European’ during the Coastlink conference held in the Belgian port of Zeebrugge on 20 and 21 February 2013.
The entire conference was devoted to the impact of 18,000 TEU vessels on Intra-European Networks. During the short sea panel debate representatives from CMA CGM, the Flemish government and the European Freight and Logistics Leaders Forum presented their views on a wide range of key issues, such as the possibilities for ferries to function as a back-up for tfeeder services, existing and future markets for feeder and shortsea traffic in Europe, the future feeder vessel size, consolidation in the short sea market, changing port of call patterns in the short sea markets and the impact of low sulphur rules in the Emission Control Areas on the shortsea and feeder markets. The transition from a port-to-port to a door-to-door approach was highlighted as one of the key challenges to shortsea operators and ports.
The conference was organized by Coastlink and MBZ (the port authority of Zeebrugge). Coastlink is an association of companies committed to expanding the role shortsea shipping plays in transporting containers around Europe. Members include deepsea and shortsea shipping companies, intermodal operators, shipbrokers, ports and stevedores, forwarding and logistics specialists and shippers. The organisation is chaired by Gavin Roser, who is also the Secretary General of the European Freight and Logistics Leaders Forum.
