Abstract
Road freight transportation has increased dramatically over recent years, as have accompanying impacts such as congestion, noise, and pollution. As a result, European governments and the U.S. government started implementing policies to promote alternatives to road transportation, such as logistic chains containing a short sea shipping (SSS) link. Shipping by road is a more flexible means of transportation than shipping by sea, which is usually cheaper. Therefore, to move traffic to SSS chains, it is necessary to provide fast, frequent, and reliable maritime transportation. In this sense, roll-on–roll-off (RoRo) vessels are the most convenient types of vehicles to be used because they have shorter dwell times in port. Therefore, the level of this kind of traffic is likely to increase dramatically. To cope with the increase in traffic, terminal managers must decide whether a change in the terminal's operation would suffice or whether the enlargement or construction of a new terminal, given the level of service provided, is necessary. This paper proposes a methodology that can be used to relate the level of service in a RoRo terminal to its capacity from the ship's point of view. This goal is achieved by using several quality indicators that, in turn, should allow terminal managers to foresee what the level of service that they offer to shipping companies would be, given the numbers of arrivals and their distribution, as well as the terminal's performance. The paper ends by applying the methodology to a real terminal in Barcelona, Spain.