Statistics Portugal (INE) - National Statistical Institute

Statistics Portugal - Economic Statistics - Sectoral Business Statistics Unit

Av. António José de Almeida

1000-043 LISBOA

Portugal

Maritime transport data refer to gross weight of goods (in tonnes), passenger movements (in number of passengers) as well as for vessel traffic (in number of vessels and in gross tonnage of vessels).

The following classifications are applicable:

Maritime Coastal area: the nomenclature is based on the Geonomenclature (the country nomenclature for the external trade statistics of the Community and statistics of trade between Member States, originally drawn up by the Council Regulation (EEC) N°1736/75) in force in the year to which the data refer (RAMON: https://showvoc.op.europa.eu/#/datasets/ESTAT_Geonomenclature_2021_%28GEONOM_2021%29/data).

Ports: the codes used are the official UN/LOCODEs, when they exist. If a port does not have an official UN/LOCODE a provisional (numeric) code is attributed to the port. As soon as an official UN/LOCODE is attributed by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) to the port at the request of the competent national authority, the provisional (numeric) code is replaced by the final official one. In exceptional cases (see for example one-port transport or special aggregation for minor ports) permanent numeric codes are attributed to special locations or activities. The code list of UN/LOCODE is available by country through the following link: http://www.unece.org/cefact/locode/service/location.html. According to the relevant directive, Eurostat draws up a list of ports, coded and classified according to countries and maritime coastal areas. The list of ports is included in implementing legal acts and as such is published in the Official Journal of the European Union (the "official" list). The most recent list of ports published in the Official Journal is found in Commission Decision (EU) 2018/1007

Nationality of registration of vessels: the nomenclature used is the Geo-nomenclature (the country nomenclature for the external trade statistics of the Community and statistics of trade between Member States, originally drawn up by the Council Regulation (EEC) N°1736/75) in force in the year to which the data refer (RAMON: https://showvoc.op.europa.eu/#/datasets/ESTAT_Geonomenclature_2021_%28GEONOM_2021%29/data).

The type of ship classification is harmonised with an internationally agreed International Classification of Ship by Type (ICST).

The type of cargo classification, available in Directive 2009/42/EC, has been established in conformity with the United Nation ECE Recommendation N°21.

Maritime transport survey concerns the carriage of goods and passengers by sea-going vessels, on voyages undertaken wholly or partly at sea. The data collected from the National Institute of Statistics are port statistics: information on goods handled in ports, passengers embarked and disembarked and vessel traffic. Detailed information is collected on the type of cargo and passengers, geographical areas where the partner ports are located, type, size and nationality of ships used to carry out that transportation.

Main concepts used in this domain are the following and for more information on the concepts and methodology, please consult the Reference Manual on Maritime Transport Statistics.

Port -A place having facilities for merchant ships to moor and to load and/or unload cargo or to disembark and/or embark passengers to or from vessels, usually directly to a pier.
Statistical Port -A statistical port consists of one or more ports, normally controlled by a single port authority, which is able to record ship, passenger and cargo movements.
Reporting Port-A statistical port for which statistics of inward and outward maritime transport flows are compiled.
Main port -A main port is a statistical port which has annual movements of no less than 200 000 passengers or recording more than one millions tonnes of cargo. For ports selected on the basis of only one of these cargo or passenger criteria, detailed statistics are required only for that transport.
Maritime coastal area (MCA) -A maritime coastal area is defined as a contiguous stretch of coastline, together with islands offshore. Within a country, an MCA is defined either in terms of one or more ranges of ports along its coastline, or in terms of the latitude and longitude of one or more sets of extremities of the coastal area. Riverbanks can be included. Normally the coastline of each country is allocated to a single maritime coastal area and the coastlines of more than one country may form a single maritime coastal area. There are some exceptions. For example, the USA is separated into a number of maritime coastal areas to cover its overall coastline. For some countries, two separate stretches of coastline may be counted as one maritime coastal area, as, for example, the Atlantic and Pacific coastlines of Mexico.
Carriage of goods and passengers by sea -The movement of goods and passengers using seagoing vessels, on voyage which are undertaken wholly or partly by sea. The scope of the Maritime Directive 2009/42/EC also includes goods:

1. Shipped to offshore installations;
2. Reclaimed from seabed and unloaded in ports.

Bunkers and stores supplied to vessels shall be excluded from the scope.

Seagoing vessel -Floating marine structure with one or more surface displacement hulls. In the context of the Directive, sea-going vessels are vessels other than those which navigate exclusively in inland waters or in waters within, or closely adjacent to, sheltered waters or areas where port regulations apply.
Nationality of registration of seagoing vessel (Flag state) -Every ship is entered in a registry (i.e. list) of ships. Registries are maintained by many countries, each having a set of rules regarding safety procedures, inspection schedules, manning numbers and nationalities for crew and officers, training requirements, etc. Ship-owners select which registry to use based on the balance between the relative cost implications of the rules of each registry and possible penalties from insurance assessments dependent on these rules.
Type of cargo- The type of cargo classification, set according to the UNECE - Codes for types of cargo, packages and packaging materials, Recommendation 21, Geneva, March 1986, describes how the goods are being transported in terms of the vessels being used and the port facilities required to handle them. It is therefore very different from the categories of goods classification.
Freight container-Special box to carry freight, strengthened and stackable and allowing horizontal or vertical transfers.

Swap bodies are excluded. Although without internal volume flats used in maritime transport should be considered to be a special type of container and therefore are included here. For a fuller description, reference should be made to ISO 668 and 1496.The related term "container cargo" refers to containers, with or without cargo, which are lifted on or off the vessels which carry them by sea.

Ro-Ro unit- This means wheeled equipment for carrying cargo, such as a truck, trailer or semi-trailer, which can be driven or towed onto a vessel. Port or ships' trailers are included in this definition. Classifications should follow United Nations ECE Recommendation No 21 'Codes for types of cargo, packages and packaging materials'. Live animals on the hoof are included. Vehicles being transported as cargo as opposed to a means of transport for freight are recorded in the separate headings of the Ro-Ro cargo classification, when they are rolled on or rolled off a vessel on their own wheels.
Ro-Ro cargo -This means goods, whether or not in containers, on Ro-Ro units, and Ro-Ro units, which are rolled on and off the vessels, which carry them by sea.
Gross weight of goods -The gross weight of each consignment is the weight of the actual goods together with the immediate packaging in which they are being transported from origin to destination, but excluding the tare weight of containers or Ro-Ro units (e.g. containers, swap bodies and pallets containing goods as well as road goods vehicles, wagons or barges carried on the vessel). This measure of quantity is different from that used in trade statistics, namely the net weight of goods and different from statistics collected on other transport modes where the tare weight is included. Where goods are transported in a road goods vehicle, in a container, or other intermodal transport unit, the gross weight of the goods does not include the tare weightof the transport unit.
Gross tonnage -This means the measure of the overall size of a ship determined in accordance with the provisions of the International Convention on Tonnage Measurement of Ships, 1969.
Passenger Any person who makes a sea journey on a merchant ship. Service staff assigned to merchant ships is not regarded as passengers. Non-fare paying crewmembers travelling but not assigned and infants in arms are excluded.
Cruise passenger -This means a sea passenger making a sea journey on a cruise ship. Passengers on day excursions are excluded.
Cruise ship -This means a passenger ship intended to provide passengers with a full tourist experience. All passengers have cabins. Facilities for entertainment aboard are included. Ships operating normal ferry services are excluded, even if some passengers treat the service as a cruise. In addition, cargo-carrying vessels able to carry a very limited number of passengers with their own cabins are also excluded. Ships intended solely for day excursions are also excluded.
Cruise passenger excursion -This means a short visit by a cruise passenger to a tourist attraction associated with a port while retaining a cabin on board.

The data used in the domain are collected at port level.

Detailed data are provided for ports handling more than one million tonnes of goods or recording more than 200 000 passenger movements annually (Main ports). The other ports are required to provide summary data. However, detailed data may be included also for minor ports on a voluntary basis.

Portugal

The data has been avaiable since 1997.

Not applicable.

The units used depend on the variables collected within each data set and are: gross weight of goods expressed in thousands of tonnes; number of passengers in thousands, number of vessels.

TEUs: Twenty feet equivalent units, expressed in units or in thousands depending on the table. TEU calculation coefficients:
• 20-ft freight units (1 TEU)
• 40-ft freight units (2 TEU)
• Freight units over 20-ft and under 40-ft in length (1.5 TEU)
• Freight units over 40-ft long (2.25 TEU).

Quarters for datasets A1, A2, C1, C2, D1, F1 and F2.
Whole calendar years for datasets A3, B1 and E1.

National Level:

•  Law Nº 22/2008 (Law of the National Statistics System)

European Level:

• The statistics on maritime transport are collected within the framework of within Directive 2009/42/EC and Commission Decision 2008/861/EC, 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.
• The dissemination is based on the terms of Commission Decision 2001/423/EC on arrangements for publication or dissemination of the statistical data collected pursuant to Council Directive 95/64/EC on statistical returns in respect of carriage of goods and passengers by sea.

Not applicable.

National level:

•  Law Nº 22/2008 (Law of the National Statistics System)

European level:

• (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.

Article 4 of Commission Decision 2001/423/EC mention that: "the highest level of detail in which data may be published or disseminated is the level of port to and from maritime coastal area. The Commission may however publish at more aggregate level if the quality and/or completeness of information are not appropriate in such detail."

A release calendar is available on the Statistics Portugal website (https://www.ine.pt/xportal/xmain?xpgid=ine_main&xpid=INE&xlang=en).

Monthly and quarterly information is available 3 months after the respective reference period.

https://www.ine.pt/xportal/xmain?xpid=INE&xpgid=ine_dispinfest

Data is made available for all users at the same time.

On the dissemination date, a press release is made and publicized on Statistics Portugal website.

Several indicators are updated monthly and available for public consultation on the website.

Quarterly maritime transport statistics are published within 10 months after the reference period and annual maritime transport statistics within 16 months after the reference period.

In Portugal maritime transport statistics are published monthly, quarterly and annually.

There is a press release about all times of quarterly and annual disclosure of information.

A publication is made available within 11 months after the end of reference year. The publication contains data on freight and passenger transport for every mode of transport: rail, road, maritime, inland waterways and air transport. Some tables with results are also disseminated with the publication. The publication is in Portuguese (the introduction is in both Portuguese and English).

The INE website has several monthly and annual indicators for the survey on maritime transport of passengers and goods.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

A metodological  survey  document is also available in the Statistics Portugal Integrated Metadata System (http://smi.ine.pt). The information is only available for download in Portuguese.

Not applicable.

Validations are made to all variables of the datafiles individually and also validations of consistency between  datafiles.

They are also carried out a series of checks to ensure data quality. If needed, respondents are contacted to provide details and correct data if necessary.

Not applicable.

The main users of Maritime Transport Statistics are national (Statistics Portugal) and local authorities, public and private research institutes both national and international.

Not applicable.

All data requested by Regulation 1090/2010 and Directive 2009/42/EC are transmitted.

The overall accuracy is considered good, given the validations / corrections made if there are errors in the datafiles.

Not applicable for maritime transport data collection.

No estimates of measurement errors are available. However, some measuring errors may occur as a result of codification errors by respondents.The existence of “unknown codes” instead of specific codes for type of goods, region of loading/unloading is also a factor which will reduce the accuracy of maritime transport statistics.

Quarterly data should be transmitted by Member States to Eurostat within five months of the end of the period of observation; annual data within eight months. The Commission (Eurostat) shall disseminate appropriate statistical data with a periodicity comparable to that of the results transmitted (Directive 2009/42/EC).

Quarterly and annual information is sent to Eurostat as specified in Directive 2009/42 / EC.

Geographical comparability is obtained via the application of common concepts and validation rules. The harmonised interpretation of the methodology is enhanced by the organisation of regular meeting of the Working Group on Maritime Transport Statistics, where all reporting countries are represented.

There might be a break in time series for certain variables in 2008, due to the change in the nomenclature applied for the classification of goods (NST 2007).

The comparison of data between domains is not always possible due to the methodological differences between surveys of the different modes of transport.

The quality checks include intra-dataset checks and inter-datasets checks. These quality checks detect data that could possibly be in error. All errors are corrected before publications.

As the entire operation is carried out using electronic means, this survey has low costs for the reporting units.

Data is revised in order to include some late corrections made by the respondents.

Monthly port traffic data are provisional for the current year. With each monthly release the data can be corrected and supplemented with new data. With annual release in July the data become final.

The sending of data to INE is the responsibility of the Port Administrations.

Monthly.

The data is collected in the format specified by the Directive.

The quality control of information provided by Port Administrations is carried out at two levels.

The first data quality control occurs in the process of integrating the “.txt” files in the database data through an application made in Visual Basic, being submitted to a set of validations of internal data coherence (according to a validation grid implemented in the  application, which falls directly on each of the files and on the crossing of the variables of the several files that make up this survey). 

In a second phase, the global coherence of information is analysed, based on a  time series analysis and crossing with other information, such as that resulting from situations of inconsistencies detected in the comparison with the statistical data published by the ports themselves.

In both phases, it is expected that actions to request clarification on possible filling questions.

Data entry: Electronic collection.

Encoding: The files are already received with the necessary encodings, being only necessary validate them, which is done automatically.

Software used: The project support application was developed in VB.net (Visual Basic .net).

The data can be adjusted annually in the preparation of the final results.

Not applicable.