The Potential of Cabotage for Ports

Abstract

With the new Comprehensive Maritime Transport Policy and the Draft Merchant Shipping Act, specific provision is made for Cabotage. The paper reviews the goal of having coastal shipping as a viable solution include the two interrelated challenges that exist for policy schemes and instruments that is required to be fulfilled in increasing Cabotage potential for both freight and passenger transport. The paper includes the identification of what are the requirements to make Cabotage part of the intermodal supply chain, instead of it being portrayed as competition to road transport. This is done by referring to the primary goals of Cabotage and what the customer satisfaction criteria for a Cabotage service is and what role ports can play in fulfilling both goals and criteria. This role of the ports is then reviewed to understand how to bridge current shore-based infrastructure deficits for Cabotage, by considering a literature review. The paper is limited to the above, but make some recommendations for ports to gear themselves up for Cabotage implementation.