Roll-on/roll-off (ro-ro) railway and seaway concepts refer to regular, frequent, heavy vehicle transport offers permitting modal transfer through concentration of goods flows on rail and sea itineraries. Existing experiences reveal that the success of such services depends on a number of prior conditions and requires the adhesion of road transport companies. Whilst unaccompanied transport appears to be a more economically relevant solutionthan accompanied transport, it does nevertheless impose major organisational constraints and meeting of market requirements. The study controlled by the Setra and presented here reflects thinking on relevance criteria governing long-distance unaccompanied goods transport. Its aim is to understand how a road transport company would use an unaccompanied transport service and the conditions under which it would be ready to do so. The first part of the study comprised a bibliographical analysis of existing work on the subject. Thirty or so interviews were then conducted at French and Italian transport companies using the Autoroute Ferroviaire Alpine and the Toulon - Civitavecchia roll-on/roll-off seaway. Analysis of these interviews allows us to provide solutions to the problem raised by these transport modes. For the covering abstract see ITRD E139491.
Abstract