The Competitiveness of Short Sea Shipping Than Road Transport in The Food Sector: The Olive Oil Case in Spain and Italy

Abstract

This paper analyses the competitiveness of the Short Sea Shipping (SSS) corridors than the road transport by comparing the operational costs to move food (olive oil) products from Spain to several Italian ports. Many studies show that sea transport features present some very positive points both in economic and environmental terms. Three main scenarios will be considered: road only; road combined with accompanied SSS (the truck driver travels inside the ship); and road combined with unaccompanied SSS. Our findings shows that the transportation cost for the road alternative is about 30% and 34% higher than the short sea option for the exportations from Jaén and southern Catalonia, respectively. Large investments in equipment and infrastructure and the adoption of measures facilitating cooperation between carriers are necessary in order to improve the revealed performance.