4 Direction of New Generation Ramp
4-1 Development of New Generation Ramp
In the present situation where international intermodal consistent transportation service is progressing, the Government has hammered out schemes for attempting to recover the competitiveness of physical distribution costs and service by de-regulation of the domestic physical distribution from the standpoint of the strengthening of competition between the companies in Japan. They are “General Physical Distribution Scheme” announced by the Japanese Government in 1997 and bills related to physical distribution to be established. In such a series of movements, high speed passenger car ferries have entered service one after another because of increase in demand for secondary feeder transportation in Japan, expectation of containerization in the interior trade, modal shift from transport by truck on the land to transport by sea, revaluation of sea trips by passenger ship and other factors. Car ferries are quite similar in their loading and unloading method to RO-RO ships, however, in Japan there are not a small number of differences in details between them. The differences are shown in the table below.
