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Abstract
The short sea shipping reports presented by the European Commission have shown that this industry segment is still lagging behind road transport and suffering from numerous constraints. To foster the elimination of the latter, the 2003 action programme on the promotion of short sea shipping presented 14 measures, one of which concerned motorways of the sea. In this respect, the 2003 High Level Group chaired by Karel van Miert defined four motorways of the sea within Project 21 of the revised trans-European transport network and presented a definition of the concept. Motorways of the sea are international short sea shipping services between ports located in two or more countries that aim at replacing land motorways to avoid congestioned roads/lanes, and linking European continental and island countries (European Commission Citation2003a). The challenge for short sea shipping rests on the revolution that the motorways of the sea are believed to make as many changes are expected to occur, particularly at port and ships’ technology levels. The concept presupposes the integration of a trans-European shipping network within the trans-European road and rail networks; the High Level Group sees motorways of the sea as a floating infrastructure capable of consolidating freight along certain trade routes where ports are special interfaces characterised by particular features. To identify these features an investigation was carried out by means of an email survey questionnaire. The findings show the viewpoint of port authorities regarding this matter and suggest a list of 21 pre-requisites that ports can use to assess their potential as a motorway of the sea interface; in addition, they can be used by governmental bodies when deciding whether to support financially motorways of the sea interfaces projects or not.