Overview
Waterborne transport has historically transported goods from quay to quay without focusing much on the intermodal aspects. This situation is changing: focus is shifting towards door-to-door transport and ship operators are increasingly adapting to this new mode of working. It is anticipated that waterborne transport services must continually improve their service levels but at the same time improve competitiveness by reducing cost levels of operations every year. The customers require the goods to be transported 'all the way' and have certain demands regarding time, price, flexibility, reliability and frequency. These logistics requirements are considered by transport customers when buying services.
Short-sea shipping has great potential to be the main part of competitive intermodal transport solutions, provided co-operation with other transport modes can be fulfilled, as shipping, more than other transport modes, is able to fulfil tomorrow's (sustainable) demands regarding costs, safety, environment and quality.
In order to exploit this potential, new knowledge, solutions and approaches on managing and transporting intermodal cargo flows must be developed. To be successful, a total service must be delivered to the customer in the form of door-to-door transport, as well as administrative and financial services related to the transport operation. Seldom is vessel performance (speed, costs, regularity, flexibility, safety, etc.) within the intermodal supply chain assessed and benchmarked, as vessel design is, in many cases, currently conducted as a suboptimal and decoupled task in a technical department/shipyard isolated from the business development and logistics department.
The main aim was to develop RoRo vessels and enable the motorways of the sea to become more competitive towards their road/rail equivalents competing for transport missions between origin and destination.
To accomplish this aim, LOGBASED partners generated a ship design methodology which will lead to the design of better ships functioning as an integral part of dynamic intermodal transport chains.
It is aimed for improvements of up to 30% for various ship capabilities, such as resistance, stability, safety, etc. as well as for various logistics performance parameters within intermodal transport chains.
Methods and tools based on a system theory, which provide decision-making support to the development team and/or decision-makers, were developed by:
- identifying the principal requirements and variables influencing the development of a viable intermodal transport business;
- capturing the principal ship design and shipbuilding variables, as well as their inter-relationships;
- mapping the commercial and technical aspects in a logistics-based design methodology and developing a supporting software tool to facilitate its application;
- applying the developed method and tools for selected business cases (intermodal transport systems) in order to verify the approach through the design of more efficient RoRo vessels.
The LOGBASED approach set out to change the current situation in business development, and make transport system and ship design development an integral part. It is argued that only through this approach the most effective solutions can be identified and developed.
The systems management approach adopted in LOGBASED was used to develop a common platform, in the form of a decision-making support system, to develop dynamic intermodal transport solutions and their pertinent ship designs.
The approach is novel and functions as a key means to transfer logistics information into a readily usable format for end users (ship owners and designers). It is argued that this approach leads to the design of better ships - serving the cargo owner and ship operators better than solutions of the past.
LOGBASED focused upon developing more efficient RoRo vessels as an integral part of dynamic intermodal transport chains based on the utilisation of the methodology. However, the approach and method are generic by nature and can be applied to most ship and cargo types.
The method identified the requirements/expectations, which should be targeted for the particular case/transport system in question, and focuses upon developing a ship design matching these requirements/expectations. Such requirements/expectations may be technically related (resistance, stability, etc.), commercially related (costs, reliability, frequency, etc.), strategically related (market position, growth, etc.); and/or related to health, safety and environmental issues.
Funding
Results
The final aim of the LOGBASED effort was to develop Ro-Ro vessels enabling motorways of the sea to become more competitive towards their road/rail equivalents. The aim and objectives have been met whereas the Final Method Report (doc no FP6-1708-WP2-D2.4-R01 Final LOGBASED methodology) and assessment of vessel designs (doc no FP6-1708-WP3-D3.4-R01 Measurement of vessel performance) provide documentation on this aspect.
Other results
The LOGBASED methodology has been utilised in four case studies in order to test, verify and further develop the methodology through designing ships accommodating the requirements and expectations relating the respective routes.
The Atlantic case is a business case investigating Roll On - Roll Off (RORO) sea transport services between Spain and the British Isles. The main expectation is to provide a regular liner service with fixed and non-rolling schedules with at least four departures per week. Second driving expectation is to provide a service offering a 30% customer saving in port to port costs. The dominant ship expectations are adequate capacity, speed, harbour times and frequency of departures. Special challenge to the ship design is coping with the weather conditions in a given schedule. Main innovation is a vessel optimised for three different operational modes, enabling efficient operation in all expected conditions. The developed configuration also improves significantly the redundancy and flexibility (e.g. the ability of the vessel to be shifted to a variety of different routes) of the design compared to existing designs. Second innovation is the constant search for simplicity and focus oriented minimisation, which resulted in a design with 10 % more capacity in a ship with 10 % less volume than comparable competition. The third innovation is the LOGBASED approach, where all transport system and design related decisions are made in a systematic and documented way.
The Baltic case is a business case that investigates in services in the north-eastern part of the Baltic Sea. The character of the business is to look into the possibilities of new services in the area. Dominant transport system expectations mainly reflect the uncertainties of a completely new service. Further, expectations concerning the future development of the cargo volumes relate directly to the nature of the transport system that has been developed. In addition, schedule related expectation drive the development of the transport system. Beyond this, usual expectations on the profitability do exist. The resulting ship design has been driven mainly by the expectations on the cargo volumes, and on frequency of the service. One innovation is, that due to the specific performance measurement one type of cargo has been deliberately removed from the transport system - initially there were requirements to transport this cargo, the result is that no service is offered for this cargo. The second innovation is how the transport