Chapter 8 The Eternal Conundrum of Greek Coastal Shipping

This chapter analyses the reasons that have led to eternal difficulties in developing an efficient and effective Greek coastal shipping system. Being crucial for the national cohesion, the effectiveness of coastal shipping services has been an issue of major importance that has captured the interest of both the Greek state and its citizens. The analysis focuses on the interplay of oligopolistic market features and ineffective state policies that has resulted in an unstable coastal market and has undermined the quality of the supplied shipping services. In particular, it discusses the role of an intervening state in shaping the market (i.e. by controlling entry, fares, safety rules and intervening in routes, manning and duration of employment). It also examines the main economic features of the coastal shipping market, which are those of a regulated oligopoly (i.e. a large number of individual users who express a flexible, heavy seasonal, steadily increasing demand; asymmetric information, mainly due to managerial, training and research deficit; the absence of auditing, high institutional and economic barriers to entry; limited mobility of coastal companies and indivisibilities). Then the chapter focuses on the essential characteristics that a passenger transportation network with a strong public interest has to fulfil (i.e. system accessibility, affordability, safety/security, quality requirements, etc.) and the limited extent to which these criteria have been applied as pre-conditions for developing a modern and efficient Greek coastal shipping. The emphasis is on the absence of a systemic approach that would take into account all the constituent parts of the coastal transport (network, market monitoring, auditing, ships, ports, infrastructure, stakeholders, etc.) and would act as the driving force towards the modernization of the coastal shipping services.