Effects of RoPax shipping line strategies on freight price and transporter's choice. Policy implications for promoting MoS

A model of the ships and transporter costs is developed considering different business models for the transporter (accompanied versus unaccompanied cargo) followed with a discrete choice model that, once calibrated, allows testing the influence that variables like ship size, fuel price or commercial speed might play into the competitiveness of a shipping line. As a result, different pricing strategies for the shipping line are developed and the characteristics of the optimal shipping line for each of them is found, that maximizes profit of the shipping company. The paper concludes assessing a subsiding policy based in bonus per unit transported and its effectiveness in promoting modal shift and the likely effect it would have in the profitability of the shipping line.