Johan Roos News

The 47th Annual Interferry Conference takes place in Hobart, Tasmania on November 4-8, 2023. With focus on elevating the customer experience and sustainability, expert presentations will feature the latest trends in tourism, service automation and onboard entertainment, as well as ship construction and conversion trends, optimised operations, and safety measures.How global tourism trends have changed and will develop post COVID-19 are part of the keynote of Robert Dougan from Tourism Australia, who kicks off the conference on Day 1.

Interferry – representing more than 270 companies and some 1,200 individual members from over 40 countries – is co-hosting a workshop at next month’s European Shipping Summit in Brussels to stress the importance of shifting more goods transport from road to short sea services, notably through better use of European Union funding to enhance the sector’s competitiveness.The workshop – ‘How to increase the share of maritime transport in Europe’s trade’  – takes place at 09:30 on September 19 in the Royal Museum of Fine Arts and is open to all interested professionals.

Trade association Interferry is conducting an energy efficiency data survey among members to ensure that existing ferries can comply with short-term greenhouse gas emissions measures agreed in principle at last week’s meeting of the International Maritime Organization’s (IMO) Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC).Subject to final approval at next June’s MEPC meeting, by 2023 existing ships must achieve new pre-defined energy efficiency values in an initial step toward the 2030 target of a 40% improvement compared with 2008 values…

Trade association Interferry says it welcomes the European Commission’s guidance on the gradual relaxation of travel restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic and relaunching of transportation links that will go into effect in advance of this summer’s travel and tourism season.“We welcome the growing signs in Europe and beyond that COVID-19 lockdown restrictions are starting to be eased,” says Interferry CEO Mike Corrigan. “The global ferry industry is prepared to contribute to…

Trade association Interferry has welcomed this week’s decision by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC) to uphold previously agreed sector-specific Energy Efficiency Design Index (EEDI) targets for ro-ro passenger and ro-ro freight vessels.The committee’s latest session – MEPC 73 – tightened EEDI requirements for certain ship types, but confirmed that ferries would be among the categories where it is appropriate to retain the original timeline and reduction rates.

Interferry has unveiled a strategic plan promising to put safety issues at the heart of its work as the voice of the worldwide ferry industry. The pledge came at the global trade association’s 41st annual conference in Manila – a venue chosen to spotlight the challenges of domestic ferry safety in developing nations. According to Interferry, the plan signals its overriding ambition to help lift ferry safety in all parts of the world to the very high standard already in place in North America and Europe, where casualties in recent decades have been extremely rare.

In response to a string of major incidents, Interferry has produced operational best practice guidance for fire safety on ro-ro vehicle decks. These measures, which aim to to enhance fire prevention, detection and suppression, highlight the need for continuous monitoring, rapid response and optimum efficiency of deluge drencher systems, the trade association said. The guidance is based on input from a questionnaire sent to association members last year following at least seven serious fire incidents on ro-pax ships in Europe since 2010. The two most recent incidents resulted in fatalities and total loss of the ships, prompting the initiative by Interferry’s Operators Policy Committee to identify and publicize a common set of best practice mitigating actions.

In an initiative led by trade association Interferry, a special correspondence group has been formed to recommend sector-specific metrics for ro-pax vessels under pending implementation rules for European Union (EU) legislation on the monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) of carbon dioxide emissions. From January 1, 2018 the legislation – designed to gauge the energy efficiency of a ship’s ‘transport work’ – will require all vessels of more than 5,000gt operating to or from EU ports to document and report their fuel consumption on an annual basis.

Firefighting led a stream of topical debate at trade association Interferry’s 40th annual conference in Copenhagen last week – but not before a record 342 delegates came under fire from a leading Green politician claiming that ‘shipping is currently one of the unaddressed areas of air pollution’. Michael Cramer, German chair of the European Parliament’s transport and tourism committee, delivered a stinging opening address demanding that the ferry and shipping sectors become more environmentally sustainable. He said ‘most vessels are like hazardous waste incinerators because they burn heavy fuel oil which should be processed as highly toxic waste but is usually exhaled without sufficient filtering’.

Interferry has joined other co-organizers in praising last week’s inaugural European Shipping Week (ESW) in Brussels, and is now urging the industry and regulators to build on the initiative by continuing to develop closer cooperation. Hailing the high attendance and constructive discussions at more than 40 events, the trade association’s regulatory affairs director Johan Roos noted, “What struck me most is how all of the shipping representatives and European Union decision makers seemed to be on the same page when we were able to get together like this for the first time. “Interferry is often critical of the EU’s approach to shipping regulations, where new requirements are consistently piled on top of the industry and only rarely with any meaningful preceding dialogue.

Johan Roos is Interferry’s executive director of European Union and IMO affairs based in Brussels, Belgium. He took up the newly created regulatory affairs post in September 2011 after previously serving as director of sustainability with Sweden’s Stena Rederi AB. He holds a masters degree in environmental sciences from the University of Gothenburg. In 2000, he left classification society DNV to join ferry operator Stena Line to develop internal environmental management systems and for many years, he was in charge of sustainability issues for all of the Stena group’s shipping activities.

Interferry has welcomed a decision at last week’s IMO Maritime Safety Committee meeting (MSC94) setting out rules for the location of fuel tanks on LNG-powered ships, a decision that the trade association said will safeguard further development of the LNG option. Following concerted cross industry coordination, member states agreed a way forward that offers impact protection of the tanks in the event of collision or grounding while avoiding the potentially prohibitive requirements of proposals previously under discussion. Until now the IMO’s efforts to avoid damage to LNG tanks and the consequent fire hazard have focused on placement of the tanks according to a mix of prescriptive rules and sophisticated calculation models…

Interferry has praised a decision made at last week’s meeting of the IMO Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC) that could exempt certain ferry operators from fitting equipment required by the impending Ballast Water Management Convention to reduce the spread of invasive species. In a joint submission with Denmark, the trade association argued that ballast water management systems were irrelevant for ships continuously operating in the same body of water, such as between the U.K. and Ireland.

A review of the ferry industry’s latest challenges and opportunities attracted a record 340 delegates to Vancouver last week for the 39th annual Interferry conference. The global trade association event exposed a string of concerns – notably over punitive safety and environmental regulations – but also highlighted the financial potential of new routes, onboard shopping incentives and the use of LNG fuel. Alongside sessions on the future of the industry, Canada-based CEO Len Roueche outlined a vision for maintaining Interferry’s influential lobbying role among politicians and regulators.

A sector-specific Energy Efficiency Design Index (EEDI) for new ro-ro cargo & ro-pax vessels has been agreed by the IMO Marine Environment Protection Committee – MEPC 65. Formal approval was confirmed late on Friday (May 17) for an Interferry-backed modification that will take effect from 2016 as an alternative to the ‘one-size-fits-all’ standard EEDI formula in force since January this year for tankers, bulk carriers and container ships. The standard formula was agreed at MEPC 62 in 2011 but short sea operators objected that it did not address the sector’s specialised power requirements and widely varying ship types. They were granted…

The trade association event takes place in Malta from October 5-9 with an agenda dominated by safety issues. Insights on how the aviation industry builds and maintains safety culture will come from special guest speaker Jarle Gimmestad of Norway-based operational safety consultancy Gimmestad AS. He was previously with Scandinavian airline SAS as a captain and then as human factors and crew resource manager, which included working with the accident investigation group. Pointing to the continuously improving safety record of air travel, he noted, “There is a significant tendency - while undesired events used to be caused by technical insufficiency, we now realize that most are contributed by human error. We have left the myth of perfection. Human error is a natural part of human behavior.

A ferry operator’s experience of ‘the fastest ship in the world’ will feature among the cutting-edge initiatives being aired at Interferry’s 38th annual conference in Malta from October 5-9. The trade association event gives South American operator Buquebus a first opportunity to showcase the commercial and technical benefits of its revolutionary newbuild Francisco. Delivered in August from Australian builder Incat Tasmania, the catamaran is the world’s first high speed dual fuel ro-ro to use LNG as its primary fuel. Incat made the “fastest ship” claim after sea trials in June.

Trade association Interferry says that ferry operators in northern Europe face a near-impossible choice in trying to meet the 2015 deadline for ultra-low sulphur emissions from bunker fuel. The association also warns that the low-sulphur legislation will prompt an environmentally damaging modal shift from short-sea to overland transport and pose severe financial implications for the overall European economy. Under pending IMO and soon to be agreed European Union (EU) environmental requirements, vessels operating in the Baltic, North Sea and Channel Emission Control Areas (ECAs) will have to comply with a 0.1% limit on fuel sulphur content.

Recognition of Interferry’s growing role as a voice for the ferry industry has prompted classification society DNV and bookings/check-in systems specialist Carus to pledge long-term financial support for the trade association and its annual conference. Interferry offers two top-level Platinum sponsorships for the event – and each organisation has signed a five-year deal after stressing their belief that the association has a key role to play, not least in ensuring regulators take account of the impact of future legislation before it is passed.

More than 250 top-level delegates attended trade association Interferry’s 38th annual conference in Malta to debate the major factors affecting ferry operations around the world. Under a new format mixing presentations with panel discussions and audience input, the event underlined the diversity of political, technical, operational and commercial issues challenging the industry. Among several sessions focused on safety, a former airline pilot confirmed the alarming certainty of human error…

Two major examples of Interferry’s growing influence will be highlighted next week at the global trade association’s 39th annual conference in Vancouver. CEO Len Roueche will report on his nomination to a new UN high level advisory group on sustainable transport, while executive director for European Union and IMO affairs Johan Roos will explain a breakthrough by ferry operators in obtaining EU funding to help them comply with the low sulphur rules that enter force in Emission Control Areas next January.

In conjunction with the first meeting of the newly established European Sustainable Shipping Forum (ESSF), which is scheduled to take place today, the shipping industry in a joint statement urges the European Commission to provide support in meeting the IMO requirement for 0.1% sulphur content in marine fuel by 2015. The shipping industry encourages the European Commission to primarily address financial support for ship conversions and to consider the timely application of any additional transitional measures to ensure an appropriate enforcement of the sulphur Directive (Directive 2012/33/EU). What is more, the shipping industry is of the opinion that…

Trade association Interferry has welcomed the decision at last week’s session of the IMO Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC) to proceed with a sector-specific methodology for establishing energy efficiency requirements for ro-ro cargo and ro-pax vessels. The Energy Efficiency Design Index (EEDI) requirements for most other ship types – due in force from 2013 – had been agreed during a previous session, when an extended timeline was approved for ro-ro ferries due to the extensive variation of ships within this segment.