Sea freight consultant John Dodwell flagged up the potential of “floating barge garages” during his address to Ro-ro 2006, a conference and exhibition in Ghent organised by Lloyd’s List Events last week.
Mr Dodwell, managing director of Rolandon Water and Sea and Freight Advisory Services, said barge carriers were already being operated in the UK, carrying some timber from the Gulf of Mexico to the River Medway, Kent.
Ships carrying 82 400-tonne barges are making the journey over the Atlantic and then flooding their tanks to let the barges continue their onward journeys, without the hassle and costs of unloading at port first.
Mr Dodwell said: “It surely makes no sense at all to bring containers in barges down the large European waterways with all the environmental advantages and then have the costs and the delays of transferring each container to another ship via conventional port facilities.”
He wants to see the European Commission develop a new barge carrier prototype being researched by Germany’s Duisberg University and Inha University, South Korea.
