River–sea shipping – competitiveness of various transport technologies

This paper evaluates two existing and one new river–sea transport technology. As existing technologies, we are dealing with river–sea transport with transhipment of cargos from sea to river ships and vice versa at ports located in the river mouths and technology with river–sea vessels and the river–sea push barge system. The new cost based models are developed for each of these technologies and illustrated through various examples. The proposed models consider the dependence between minimal total costs and relations of sea transport distance to total transport distance, on one side, and a level of cargo handling rates in ports, on the other side. An analysis of the results provides us with the possibility of drawing useful guidelines for further improvement and development of river–sea transport and its technologies.

► Analytical methodology for selection of cost-effective river–sea shipping. ► Cost dependence on transport distance for three river–sea transport technologies. ► Costs dependence on cargo handling rates for three river–sea transport technologies. ► Dependence between sea leg and ship capacity utilization in river–sea shipping. ► Geographic application of river–sea shipping: Danube–Black/Mediterranean sea.