Paving the way to Motorways of the Sea

The aim of the project is to boost the ability of short sea shipping to compete on more door-to-door corridors and facilitate the development of TEN-T Motorways of the Sea network connecting Europe, bridging the gaps between TEN-T corridors and revitalising peripheral regions.

B2MOS, which is co-financed by the Trans-European Transport Network and with the participation of DG-MOVE is contributing to establishing a European maritime space without barriers by facilitating and simplifying compliance with regulations and by promoting intermodal sustainable transport solutions that reinforce the Motorways of the Sea (MoS) strategy and that take full advantage of existing port facilities and short sea capacities.

Early October the 22 partners and 5 implementing bodies will officially kick off the project in Valencia. The Valencia Port Foundation and the Port Authority of Valencia will be the hosts of this event, which will clearly explain and clarify the objectives, activities, and the interoperability studies and 14 pilot initiatives that will be carried out in the period July 2013 – December 2015. This meeting will also specify the plans for the Maritime Single Windows in the 6 participating countries – Germany, Greece, Italy, Slovenia, Spain and United Kingdom.

The B2MoS global project, through its activities, intends to demonstrate how the application of emerging and existing technologies sustained by efficient communication procedures and collaborative information exchanges among public and private stakeholders can improve, promote and simplify the use of multimodal short-sea services by using the existing maritime links and facilities, connecting maritime, road and rail resources optimally through the use of European Motorways of the Sea.

This global project was already initiated by the MOS4MOS Action approved during the 2010 Call and selected as one of the successful TEN-T project implementations in 2012, and published in the “10 (More) of TEN” publication by the TEN-T Executive Agency. The new B2MOS Action further extends the work started during MOS4MOS further than just the Mediterranean region and explores interactions with ports of neighbouring third countries for a smooth access to the MoS.