BTJ 3/2008 - Baltic Transport Journal

Focus
Ro-ro traffic on the Baltic
The division of the Baltic ferry market continues
b i m o n t h l y - d a i l y c o m p a n i o n
Growth in tonnage higher than
in the number of vessels
The Baltic Sea is the busiest ferry navigation area in the world.
The ferries of the Baltic operators make more voyages than all the
remaining ferries in the world.
They handle 25% of all the lorries
and 36% of all the private cars
shipped by sea.
This is accomplished by a
fleet of 110 vessels, which at the
same time offers cargo lanes and
passenger seats for everybody, and over 40 ships
dedicated for the transport of vehicles only. In
our classification, we have used other criteria
than the official ones, which is to say that we
also consider the units carrying more than 12
passengers as ro-ro vessels since they are exclusively
lorry drivers. The figures do not include
cabotage, which has been particularly developed
in Denmark and Estonia, with the exception of
Mols Linien, Destination Gotland and Rosmorport.
As far as ro-ro vessels are concerned,
we have skipped the shipowners whose vessels
qualify as industrial carriers and are utilized to
handle Swedish and Finnish paper exports.
The Baltic navigation’s peculiar trait is its
diversification on the technological and exploatational
levels, not to be met in other water
zones, and this is why the “ro-pax” column in
the table presented next page may appear oversimplified.
It includes the cruise ferries and the
typical ro-pax units, double-end ferries and
combis as much as the traditional multipurpose
ferries configured – very often by way of
their redevelopment – to suit the needs of individual
lines. We have skipped the ships and
services of a purely passenger character and
hence such operators as ACE Link and Linda-
Line are not included in our index.
Also routes are diversified in a similar way
– from a 20-minute service via Øresund with 126
one-way sailings per day to the line between Helsinki
and Travemünde where a passage lasts more
than 24 hours (27 hours by Star class vessels and
36 hours by the Hansa class to be precise).
Focus
Contrary to container shipping, the growth
in the number of ships in the Baltic ferry industry
has been relatively slow. An increase in
efficiency is most often accomplished through
the replacement of tonnage or its redevelopment.
Container ships do not age in a “moral”
sense while ferries do so relatively quickly. The
service between Helsinki and Tallinn serves as
a good example; two years ago, two multipurpose
ferries, three High-Speed Crafts which
did not carry lorries, and two ro-ros were operated
on this service. All seven vessels were
replaced by one cruise ferry and three so-called
fast shuttle ferries while the replaced HSCs
were sold to a buyer outside the Baltic Sea area
and other vessels redeployed. Also two services
owned by Finnlines underwent similar modernizations
– the new units are definitely larger and
faster. Three brand new ro-paxes with GT totalling
46,000 joined the service on the Helsinki-
Travemünde line, while two similar units began
to operate on the Malmö-Travemünde line.
continued on page 46
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