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elive congestion at a Tier 1 port such as ports of New York/New Jersey while continuing tofill available capacity at their own facilities. Expanding a feeder port system would not onlyreduce the adverse impacts of congestion at Tier 1 international ports, it would also addcapacity and promote economic development in small port areas, as the CEO of HorizonLines, a shipping company that has had difficulties in sustaining its container feederoperations on self-propelled vessels has suggested. 93Efficiency of practices involving the development of inland distribution centers for“transshipment” of international cargo imports, often used interchangeably with “feedering,”closely hinges on the availability of small feedering vessels and SSS services. The PortInland Distribution Network (PIDN) developed in the New York/New Jersey area, anddistribution center developed in the Southern California Empire Valley, for instance, areexamples of the practice of transshipping goods from one shipping line/vessel to another, orfrom one type of container to another. Container transshipment today often involvesshipping the container on truck to a distribution center for reloading, sorting, and valueaddedoperations. The practice has become a growing component of the strategy pursued bymany vessel operators that take advantage of available ground intermodal connections toreduce the number of port calls and transship cargo to and from such a PIDN by relying on athrough-bill-of-lading (BOL).The domestic feeder connectors would provide an efficient hub & spoke network for movinginternational containers on their domestic leg. In the recent years, growth in marine-relatedhub & spoke networks has been fueled by increased vessel size that have compelled carriersto reduce the number of ports directly called. For new coastal SSS services to be viable theyneed to be fully integrated with the existing and emerging port networks. Furthermore, sincethe nation’s intercity trucks and rail carriers also use the same hub & spoke models forcarrying international containers, SSS services need to be closely connected to them. Suchan integrated network of well connected hub & spokes to strategically located PIDN anddistribution centers utilizing the coastal routes and the inland waterways would fosterdevelopment of an efficient feedering network to reduce trucking emissions and urbanhighway congestion and improve fuel use and air quality.Promoting a system of regional feeder ports would require coordinated operations within theregion. This means that the ports would function as a system rather than as competing,disjointed entities. Such a system would allow regional infrastructure investments to beprioritized to select candidate SSS projects with maximum network benefits.Comparing and contrasting the U.S. SSS and COB operations with those prevailing in theEuropean Union (EU) would offer some valuable lessons. These lessons are particularly ofvalue because the privately held nature of the tug & barge industry in the U.S. has preventedthe development of reliable measures of the economic viability of SSS. EU’s Marco PoloFreight Transport Program is a publicly funded initiative undertaken “to shift or avoid” asubstantial part of the expected increase in international freight traffic from roads to SSS,rail, and inland waterway transport. The program, first launched in 2003, is currently93 Chuck Raymond, President and CEO of Horizon Lines, Inc. quoted in David J. Farrell, Jr. “America’s MarineHighway a/k/a Short Sea Shipping: A Win-Win Proposition”, 5 Benedict’s Maritime Bulletin, Third/FourthQuarter, pp. 221-226, 2007.ONR SSS Final Report 74