Short Sea Shipping: An Analysis of Turkish Liner Shipping in Terms of Positioning Strategies

Short sea shipping plays a vital role in the international movement of goods and passengers within the global shipping market. This role has been increasingly recognized and realized by the researchers. Short sea shipping (SSS) is a concept that covers the sealeg of an intermodal operation or any other maritime or sea-river operation within or between countries in geographical Europe, the Mediterranean and Black Sea. The aim of this study is to evaluate Turkey's current situation in the short sea shipping sector and to cover an analysis of the Turkish liner shipping companies in terms of service positioning strategies in short sea lines in the Mediterranean market. An empirical study has been conducted in the analysis of the subject. The paper is composed of three main parts: the first part covers literature survey on the short sea liner shipping market. The second part includes the positioning strategies for short sea shipping services of the liner companies both in the world as a general and in the Mediterranean market particularly. The last part of the paper consists of a field study that covers the results of the positioning analysis for these companies.