Editorial:

The flexible ro-ro

The short sea ro-ro market has been down for a while now. Economic growth in Europe has stagnated and the fact that a significant part of the industrial production in North Europe is carried by ro-ro vessels is not making life easier for ro-ro owners.
Ups and downs are characteristic for shipping, following the cycles of the inevitable fluctuations in economies both near and far. Even if the ro-ro segment faces difficulties for the moment, this does not necessarily mean that the concept itself is wrong.
It is true that ro-ro vessels include a lot of sophisticated cargo-handling equipment, making them more expensive to build than, for example, container/dry cargo vessels of similar size – they are not standard vessels and they are not built in large series either.
The ro-ro operator usually has specific demands on the vessels employed. These demands are related to the operating profile of the service, the ports involved and the cargo mix most likely to be carried. It is hard to design a true “all-round” ro-ro vessel Still, there are many fine vessels out on the market, suitable for virtually any ro-ro trade. Even if the line between “multi-purpose” and “multi-useless” may be very thin, most of the ro-ro vessels may be operated successfully all over the world – provided there is a market for this kind of transport.
The basic idea behind the ro-ro concept is fast cargo handling, including the possibility for immediate delivery to the customer without any delay through intermediate storage.
When a container feeder vessel carries standardised cargo units with only a few different dimensions, the ro-ro vessel carries a number of different cargo units, such as road trailers, mafis, containers, project cargoes, various vehicles, forest products and steel products. There are hardly any standards regarding size and weight of the units; still, they all have to fit into the same vessel without wasting any space. In this way, the ro-ro vessel is comparable to the general cargo vessels of yesterday.
But there the similarities end: A ro-ro carrier loads thousands of tonnes during the course of one day, while the general cargo vessels were days, or even weeks in port.
The ro-ro vessel is the ultimate general cargo carrier in several niches, a vessel type we simply cannot afford to live without.
In Scandinavian Shipping Gazette’s special issue Ro-ro Technology we present some of these outstanding vessels. We have just chosen a few of the most recent ones, each one representing more or less different philosophies.
And what are today’s hottest trends in the design of new ro-ro vessels? We have looked at these too.
The so-called ro-pax vessel has turned out to be a successful type on many ferry routes, taking the best out of both the ferry and the ro-ro vessel. The point is, that despite its passenger capacity, the ro-pax is a genuine ro-ro vessel with an impressive cargo capacity and truly rational cargo handling.
In this issue, we will take a look at recent ro-pax entries in the ferry fleets of both the Mediterranean and Northern European waters.
We have also focused on the ports and their infrastructure. After all, the port contains perhaps the most important external systems for making the ro-ro concept work.
Scandinavian Shipping Gazette published its first Ro-ro Technology in 1983. This is our eleventh ro-ro issue. During this period, covering close to 20 years, we have seen tremendous development. The vessels in the short sea segment have become more efficient, considerably larger and a great deal faster.

//Pär-Henrik Sjöström, editor

 

Back to SSG 3, March 8