A comparative Analysis of Lo-Lo and Ro-Ro short sea shipping networks in Italy

In this paper, the main features of Short Sea Shipping (SSS) services offered at Italian ports are analysed. Both container and Ro-Ro Italian SSS networks are considered. In the first part of the paper, domestic and international Ro-Ro routes in 2008 and 2010 are taken into account, which depart or arrive from/to Italian ports; weekly frequencies are presented, and their values in years 2008 and 2010 are compared. For each Italian port the number of domestic and international Mediterranean direct and indirect destinations are reported (direct connections are routes where two ports are linked without any intermediate stop: for example, in the route Livorno-Olbia-Cagliari, Livorno is directly linked to Olbia and is indirectly linked to Cagliari). An accessibility matrix is shown, which reports for each Italian seaport the number of Ro-Ro ship departures to all other Italian ports. The Mediterranean containerised SSS links to/from Italian ports are taken into consideration in the second section of the work. Italian ports served by Lo-Lo containerised SSS services are listed, together with the number of direct and indirect destinations and the number of monthly ship departures, for both domestic and international freight traffic. Accessibility matrixes for Lo-Lo containerised Italian domestic SSS services are reported which point out that the majority of Lo-Lo containerised routes are “circular”. In the third part of the note a comparison between Italian Ro-Ro and containerised SSS networks have been carried out. First it can be noticed that Ro-Ro connections are routes that link together two or three ports, and only rarely involve a greater number of ports, whereas Lo-Lo routes connect together a huge number of ports, up to 10 or more. Furthermore, the most relevant ports in Ro-Ro and Lo-Lo Italian SSS networks are different ones. In order to evaluate the connectivity of the Lo-Lo and Ro-Ro SSS networks, two measures have been used: the beta index and the gamma index. Very small differences emerge from the analysis of connectivity: with a slightly higher degree of connectivity showed by the Lo-Lo containerised network. From the comparison between the Italian Lo-Lo containerised and Ro-Ro SSS networks carried out in the paper results that Ro-Ro and containerised SSS service at Italian ports form networks with different characteristics. The most relevant ports in Ro-Ro and Lo-Lo Italian SSS networks are different ones. The routes are also different: the Ro-Ro network is based mainly on return origin-destination trips, whereas Lo-Lo lines do operate longer routes, with several intermediate stops. The number of destinations served in the Mediterranean region at Italian ports is higher for the container network compared to the Ro-Ro network, but the number of monthly ship departures registered in the container network is lower. With reference to the Italian domestic services, the accessibility analysis clearly demonstrates that the connectivity of Lo-Lo network relies very much on indirect links, whereas the Ro-Ro network is formed almost only by direct port connections