Sustainable pricing and European maritime policy

During the last few years, transport policy, both at national and at a European level, focused on the need to increase efficiency in the mobility of goods and passengers, also in sustainable terms. In this context, ports, considered as crucial nodes in global multimodal transport networks, gained growing importance. The presence of overcapacity, stemming also from an inappropriate sizing of port infrastructures and the lack of a pricing system related to sustainable and economic criteria are example of interrelated elements that generate losses of efficiency within the port environment and that represent some of the main obstacles to the development of a fair competition, both within and among the different modes of transport. The present paper intends to provide some reflections on the European port policy and on pricing setting procedures. The idea is to investigate the possibility of using fair pricing and a loyal competition to have, in the future, an evenly transport system based also on the use of more environmentally-friendly transport modes. This work is organised as follows: • firstly, recent trends of the maritime transport sector are briefly analysed in order to have a clearer idea of the context in which we are moving; • secondly, the author focuses on the study and the critical analysis of the tariff system recently proposed by the EC and analyses the possibility to implement an alternative pricing method on the basis of current literature and practical applications; • finally, the paper provides some indications and sets out recommendations.