Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union

E3: Transport

2920 Luxembourg LUXEMBOURG

The maritime transport performance cover passenger-kilometres (PKM) for passenger transport and tonne-kilometres (TKM) for freight transport that are 'territorialised' to the countries and the EU.

The ‘territorialised’ maritime transport performance is a concept used mainly for comparing the transport modes' activity at the EU or at a country level. These data are not comparable with statistics on energy consumption in transport or with GHG emissions as these are based on different methodologies; these data schould not be used in the determination and fulfilment of environmental goals.

Eurostat collects maritime transport data expressed in tonnes and in number of passengers between pairs of ports, however,  the methodology for calculation and ‘territorialisation’ of maritime transport performance in tonne-km (TKM) and passenger-km (PKM) has been developed by Eurostat. 

Passenger-km and tonne-km are calculated by Eurostat on the basis of the collected maritime transport data expressed in tonnes and in number of passengers between pairs of ports with the help of the distance matrix (on the basis of the ‘most likely’ sea routes used by vessels), developed and maintained by Eurostat. The distance matrix contains a 'territorialisation' tool that, for each pair of ports, calculates the distance performed in the Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ) of the countries crossed.

The 'territorialised' TKM and PKM are presented at a country and at the EU level with the following breakdowns:

• National transport
• International Intra-EU transport
• International Extra-EU transport
• Transit

Concrete examples and description of these breakdowns can be found in the diagram (see Annexes); they are explained in point 18.5 below and in further details in the 'Methodology for territorialisation of maritime transport' (in the Annex).

Data on short-sea shipping in tonne-km (TKM) are presented in a separate table mar_tp_sss.

Not applicable

Transport

Eurostat collects maritime transport data expressed in tonnes and in number of passengers between pairs of ports according to Directive 2009/42/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 6 May 2009 on statistical returns in respect of carriage of goods and passengers by sea (Recast) (Text with EEA relevance).

The methodology for calculation and ‘territorialisation’ of maritime transport performance in TKM and PKM has been developed by Eurostat:

‘Territorialisation’ means that the transport is performed within the territory of a country. In terms of maritime transport, 'territorialisation' means that the transport performed is allocated to the countries on each maritime transport route based on the distance passed through their Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ).  This principle aims to bring as close as possible maritime to the other transport modes in order to compare shares of each transport mode into the total transport performance in the European Union and also at national level. This is called the ‘modal split’ between the different transport modes.

 ‘Transport performance’ is measured in tonne-kilometres (TKM) for freight and passenger-kilometres for passengers (PKM). A tonne-kilometre is defined as one tonne of freight transported  for one kilometre; a passenger-kilometre is defined as one passenger transported for one kilometre. First, the total TKM or PKM on a route are calculated based on passengers/freight transported between pair of ports and a distance matrix.  Then, the calculated TKM/PKM are ‘territorialised’ by allocating them proportionally to the countries whose EEZ were crossed, according to the distance in each country’s EEZ.

Eurostat maintains a database of distances (distance matrix) between EU ports, and between EU ports and main world-wide ports on the basis of the ‘most likely’ sea routes used by vessels. These routes are defined on the basis of vessel position data (Automatic Identification System (AIS) data) transmitted by vessels equipped with transponders. The algorithm used for the “most likely” route calculations chooses the shortest route possible between the points with the highest density of AIS observations.

 Eurostat uses the available EEZ mapping from Flanders marine institute VLIZ (http://www.vliz.be/en) with the following disclaimer: "The designations employed and the presentation of material on the map do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the European Union concerning the legal status of any country, territory or area or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries."

The concept of short-sea shipping is explained in this article. Additional definitions of the terms used in the frame of the statistics on maritime transport are available in the "Glossary for Transport Statistics" (see Annex).

The maritime data on passengers and freight transported between pair of ports, used for the calculation of data in this domain are collected by different data providers at port level. For more information, please refer to the relevant metadata on Maritime transport (mar)

The scope of the statistics covered by the Directive 2009/42/EC refers to the carriage of goods and passengers by seagoing vessels calling at ports in the territories of the reporting countries. Usually, maritime transport takes place between two ports. However, the scope of this Directive also explicitly includes goods:

• Shipped to offshore installations;
• Reclaimed from the seabed and unloaded in ports.

The basic concept is that maritime transport relates to the carriage of goods or/and passengers by sea for commercial purposes. According to the Directive, vessels with a gross tonnage of less than 100 may be excluded from the data collection. The scope of the Directive explicitly excludes bunkers and stores supplied to vessels. Indeed, bunker fuel for ships, ship’s stores of maintenance equipment, food and supplies are excluded from the concept of carriage of goods, since these are related to the operation of vessels.

The legal act specifically states that detailed reporting (on transported passengers/cargo between pairs of ports) should be done by handling more than one million tonnes of goods ("main port for goods") or recording more than 200 000 passenger movements ("main passenger ports") annually. Detailed data can be provided for smaller ports on voluntary basis. The detailed data on passengers, embarked/disembarked between two ports, exclude cruise passengers.

Currently detailed maritime transport data on passengers and freight are reported by the EU countries, an EFTA country (Norway) and two candidate countries (Turkey and Montenegro). Data reported by all these countries are used in the calculation and territorialisation of maritime transport PKM and TKM data.

 Thus the coverage of calculated tonne-km and passenger-km are always restricted by the reporting obligations of the countries. In addition, it is also restricted only to data on passengers and freight provided by the reporting to Eurostat countries and it will always exclude the transport performed between two ports of non-reporting countries (e.g. between ports of Russia or Brazil).

Data on PKM and TKM are disseminated for the EU Member States and EFTA country Norway. EU aggregates are also provided.

From 2005 onwards.

Not applicable

Transport performance is measured in tonne-kilometres (TKM) for freight and passenger-kilometres for passengers (PKM).

Calendar year

The statistics on maritime transport are collected within the framework of within Directive 2009/42/EC and Commission Delegated Decision (EU) 2018/1007 of 25 April 2018, as amended by Commission Decision 2010/216/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 14 April 2010, by Regulation 1090/2010 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24 November 2010 and by Commission Delegated Decision 2012/186/EU of 3 February 2012.

Not applicable

Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 on European statistics (recital 24 and Article 20(4)) of 11 March 2009 (OJ L 87, p. 164), stipulates the need to establish common principles and guidelines ensuring the confidentiality of data used for the production of European statistics and the access to those confidential data with due account for technical developments and the requirements of users in a democratic society.

For further details, please refer to the relevant medatata on Maritime transport (mar).

Data are normally released for the period of T-2 in March of year T.

Release calendar - Eurostat (europa.eu)

In line with the Community legal framework and the European Statistics Code of Practice Eurostat disseminates European statistics on Eurostat's website (see item 10 - 'Accessibility and clarity') respecting professional independence and in an objective, professional and transparent manner in which all users are treated equitably. The detailed arrangements are governed by the Eurostat protocol on impartial access to Eurostat data for users.

Annual.

Normally not planned.

Modal split is presented in the Statistics Explained article on Freight transport statistics - modal split.

Please consult free data on-line

Not applicable

Internet address: http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat

The methodology for calculating and territorialising PKM and TKM for maritime transport at countries level can be found in the document 'Methodology for territorialisation of maritime transport' (see Annex).

The Reference Manual on Maritime Transport Statistics (see Annex) contains detailed methodological information as well as background information on the implementation of the legal acts and on how passengers and freight data are processed and disseminated by Eurostat.

The Reference Manual on Maritime Transport Statistics (see Annex) includes a section describing the quality checks applied to the incoming data.

Data quality is ensured by the implementation of a common and well established methodology for the data collection and compilation at country level. Data is subsequently validated in Eurostat by applying different controls on the incoming data, before and after treatment, as well as by cross-checking partner countries figures (mirror statistics).

Data quality on maritime passengers and freight is generally high. Few problems are detected on data treatment and if so, the countries involved are immediately contacted to solve the problem. Annually, a data quality report is prepared with a summary of the main findings affecting quality as well as showing the solution adopted and the level of the existing differences. It is provided to each country in order either to correct the existing data or to improve the data quality for the future data transmissions.

The main users are evaluated to be the European Commission, international and governmental bodies.

The ‘territorialised’ maritime transport performance is a concept developed to be used mainly for comparing shares (modal split) of the transport carried out by the different modes of transport within the total transport performance at the EU level or countries level. These data are not comparable with statistics on energy consumption in transport or with GHG emissions as these are based on different methodologies;  these data should not be used for the determination and fulfilment of environmental goals.

Eurostat does not carry out a specific satisfaction survey, apart from regularly organised ‘User satisfaction surveys’. Methodological issues or other aspects of further development are a subject of discussion with the relevant national authorities, other services of the Commission or, in some cases, other institutions.

There is an obligation of data provision for the Member States and, as a consequence, there are very few gaps in the data. Data are based on the reports provided by the countries. Therefore, they reflect any break in series appearing due to a country starting to report data to Eurostat (i.e. Turkey in 2008).

The overall accuracy of maritime data on passengers and freight is considered to be good. When data are compared with other sources, such as statistics compiled by local port authorities or the European Sea Ports Organisation (ESPO), discrepancies are usually found to be resulting from differences in the methodology, scope or definitions used in the various data collections. However, some errors may occur in the statistics due to coverage errors, measurement errors or processing errors (see section 13.3 of metadata on Maritime transport (mar)).

There are some shortcomings of the use of the developed by Eurostat distance matrix to the reported statistics on passengers and freight at port-to-port level.  For instance, there are cases when either the loading or the unloading port is reported as unknown by the countries, or the port code (UN/LOCODE) is not recognised by the tool of the distance matrix (wrong or outdated port code, or a port that is not (yet) covered by the distance matrix). In order to include in the calculations of TKM/PKM as many port pairs as possible, Eurostat has attributed distances to routes for which no distance was available in the developed distance matrix; for more information, please refer to section ‘4.2 Completion of the matrix’ in ‘Methodology for territorialisation of maritime transport’ (in Annex).

Not applicable

Not applicable

The data collection on passengers and freight, followed by calculation and 'territorialisation' of maritime transport PKM and TKM takes between a year and year and a half after the reference period.

In general, the reporting countries are able to respect the legal deadlines. Exceptions are limited to specific or abnormal situations. In consequence, Eurostat is generally able to disseminate the European maritime transport statistics within the specified deadlines. Any exceptions from these principles are documented in the official publications.

Geographical comparability is obtained via the application of common concepts and validation rules.

Comparability over time is normally high. The present methodological approach on collecting data on passengers and freight has been applied for a number of years now and it is well understood and applied at port and country level. However, data availability over time depends on each country (for more information, please refer to section 19 in the Maritime transport (mar)). Break in series appears in 2008 when Turkey started to report data to Eurostat.

Data coherence across the domain is good as detailed data at port-to-port level are available and this information allows the implementation of different quality checks to ensure the coherence of the data.

The quality checks on maritime freight and passenger data include mirror statistics, time series checks and inter-datasets checks.  These quality checks detect data that could possibly be in error. Further investigation is recommended for data that fail these checks. Therefore, the internal consistency of the data is generally high.  For more information, please refer to the Maritime transport (mar).

The calculation of data is done by Eurostat and does not apply any cost and burden at national level.

Data revisions on maritime freight and passenger statistics are taken into account and processed when provided by the national competent authorities.

Methodology on collecting passengers and freight has been settled down in the above mentioned directive following existing agreements. Methodology on agreeing a method to calculate and 'territorialised' transport performance (in tonne-km and passenger-km) that allows comparison of maritime transport to other modes has been discussed and agreed within the European statistical system (ESS).

Data are collected and/or compiled by the competent national statistical authorities, which can be for instance national statistical offices, ministries of transport, national maritime administrations or national port administrations, etc.

Data are collected by the national competent authorities in the reporting countries using a variety of data sources, such as port administration systems, national maritime databases, customs databases or questionnaires to ports or shipping agents.

For more information on sources and methods used by the reporting countries, please see the Reference Manual on Maritime Transport Statistics.

Quarterly and annual

Data on passengers and freight are transmitted to Eurostat via eDAMIS (electronic Dataflow Administration and Management Information System) in the CSV or SDMX file.

Validation of data on passengers and freight takes place at several levels of the data processing.

For further details, please refer to the section 18.4 of the metadata of Maritime transport (mar).

Information on the distance matrix that Eurostat is using for the calculation of tonne-km and passenger-km and their ‘territorialisation’ at country level is available in section 4 'Distance matrix/Territorialisation tool' of the 'Methodology for territorialisation of maritime transport' (see in Annex).

The distance matrix contains a 'territorialisation tool' that allows attributing the TKM or PKM to the countries or the EU based on their Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ) and hence the results are an estimation based on a method with certain assumptions.

At country level, data are presented with the following breakdowns:

• ‘National’ that is transport between two ports located in the country
• 'International intra-EU' that covers transport between the concerned country and EU Member States, excluding national (domestic) transport.
• 'International extra-EU' that is transport between the concerned country and non-EU countries.
• 'Transit' that is transport between other countries (EU countries or non-EU countries reporting data to Eurostat) that passes through the EEZ of the concerned country, without loading/embarking or unloading/disembarking at its ports.

Eurostat calculates as well EU aggregates, with following breakdowns:

• ‘National’ that is transport between two ports located in the same country.
• 'International intra-EU' that is transport between EU Member States, excluding national (domestic) transport
• 'International extra-EU' that is transport between EU Member States and non-EU countries.
• 'Transit' that is transport between non-EU countries (reporting data to Eurostat) that passes through the EEZ of one or more Member States without loading/embarking or unloading/disembarking in their ports.

The total tonne-km and passenger-km calculated for the EU aggregate are equal to the sum of the Member States totals. However, the sum of the presented breakdowns of the Member States are not equal to the respective breakdowns for the EU aggregate as the concept differs. For better understanding, please, refer to the diagram in the Annex.

The calculations of tonne-km and passenger-km for the countries or for the EU, are based on all data reported to Eurostat (as mentioned in point 3.6) that covers as well some non-EU countries. It is important to bear in mind that the category ‘transit’ is particularly influenced by the availability of data for non-EU countries and their inclusion or not in the calculations. Further details of the calculation of TKM and PKM and their 'territorialisation' can be found in the 'Methodology for territorialisation of maritime transport' (see Annex).

Not applicable 

For further details on maritime data collection, please refer to Maritime transport (mar).