A Study on Energy Efficiency Design Index for Ro-Pax Ships

The growing concern about the GHG emissions and their detrimental effect on the population and the environment constitute the mean reason of the commitment to invest resources to investigate the application of the Energy Efficiency Design Index for ships in the belief that this kind of instrument could deliver in the long term perspective reduction in CO2 emissions. The achievement of this outstanding objective has to rely on a robust and technically sound instrument that at the same time does not undermine the shipping capabilities. To this end an investigation on the application of the EEDI concept, as established so far by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) to the Ro-Pax ship segment has the scope to test the validity of the concept and eventually to further refine and develop it under the over-hatching objective of CO2 emissions reduction. Furthermore we would like to underline how this particular segment of Ro-Pax and more in general Ro-Ro ship categories, are those which are operating mainly in short sea services and are in direct competition with other modes of transport. Therefore in line with the recent White Paper on Transport issued by the European Commission where a modal shift to more environmentally friendly modes for voyages longer than 300km is an objective, this study will try to further reinforce the rightness of that high level objective. The present study takes action from the EEDI scheme as defined in the MEPC of IMO over the past years and in particular refers to the following documents: MEPC.1/Circ.681, MEPC.1/682, MEPC.61.WP10, MEPC 62/6/4 which constitute the frame under which the following consideration have been developed.