THE SPECIALIZATION OF ROLL TRAILER PLATFORMS AS A KEY ELEMENT IN RO-RO PORTS. A STUDY FOR THE PORT OF SANTANDER.

Abstract

In recent years Ro-Ro traffic has undergone major changes, the most significant being heavy loads transport in break bulk or static cargo, in other words, the transport of bulky and heavy loads in conventional general cargo ships has moved to Ro-Ro vessels over rolling platforms. Nowadays due to the high cost and fragility of these goods they must be handled with the utmost care. In this article we deal with the transformation suffered by this type of maritime traffic and the development in Ro-Ro vessels cargo equipment, analyzing the traffic data for such goods at Port of Santander in Spain in the last ten years and discussing how it has affected the increasing amount of goods in vessels’ size and specialization