The overall objective of REALISE is to develop strategies, methodologies, and tools for the European policy-makers and business community to expand the use of short sea shipping.

The specific aim is to assist European business actors and policy-makers to secure the key maritime transport objective of the European Commission 2001 White Paper on ‘A European Transport Policy’. This objective is to achieve a substantial modal shift of freight from road to sea accompanied by the development of intermodality, during the next decade.

REALISE analyses short sea shipping, therefore, in the context of its integration into overall logistics transport chains.

During its 3-year activities, REALISE achieved interesting and important results on Statistics, Environment impacts comparisons across modes for the internalisation of external costs, Transport Market functioning and services, Port Hinterland Developments and Infrastructure requirements and Modal Drivers and modes performance assessments.

The REALISE findings provide valuable insights for the efficient integration of different transport modes. One aim is to make intermodalism a preference for the movement of goods in Europe.

An expansion of short sea shipping together with the balanced use of transport modes will enable Europe to: