For some countries with good access to sea via long coastlines, short sea shipping can
be an alternative to land-oriented transports. The figures for the Netherlands show
that the amount of tonnes carried by this mode is comparable to road and rail freight
tonnages. For the UK, the short sea shipping accounts for about 27% of the road and
rail freight tonnages. For Germany, less than 10% of the land transportation tonnage
is transported via short sea shipping. This is plausible due to Germany’s much shorter
coastline compared to the Netherlands, the UK, Italy or Spain.