New Regulations & Climate Change: Effect on Modal Split & Modal Choice

Since the beginning of shipping, the commercial routes have not changed at all. For most ships, except for the larger ones, the main route, which connects Europe and Asia, goes through the Gulf of Aden and the Suez Canal. Climate Change has had a great effect on the North Pole, creating a much shorter sea route between Europe and Asia, the Northern Sea Route (NSR). This alternative shipping route can offer a much shorter connection, even by 40%. On the other hand, the trans-Siberian railway is now connected to the national railway of Germany and some companies have been using it to transfer goods to and from China. The goal of this paper is to estimate the percentage of transported cargo that will be shifted to other carrying modes or routes.The model developed for the purpose of this paper, by using a multinomial logit function, shows the percentage of the transported cargo for every mode among ship via Suez or NSR, via trans–Siberian Railway and via airborne transportation. The factors, which were included in the function, were the generalized cost of transport, the transportation time (door-to-door) and the value of time.