Environmental impact of ferries

Environmental impact of ferries

2/17/2023 1:38:04 PM

It’s worth pointing out that most figures for ferries assume you are taking a car.

Most of the answers already given use such figures. However, there is also the important case to consider of foot passengers. According to Seat61, the UK’s DEFRA uses a nominal figure of 22.54 grams of CO2 per foot passenger kilometre, which would put ferries within the same order of magnitude as trains and buses.

2/17/2023 11:32:16 AM

Emissions figures for ferries are surprisingly hard to find compared to those for cars, trains, and aircraft. The best source I’ve found for ferries is this report:

Åkerman, Jonas (2008). Klimatpåverkan från utrikes resor ["Climate effects from foreign travel"]. Report TRITA-INFRA-FMS 2008:7. Stockholm: Royal Institute of Technology.

Åkerman looks at foreign travel by residents of Sweden. He sources ferry emissions figures from public environmental impact reports and personal communications from Silja Line and Viking Line, the main operators of ferries between Sweden and Finland. These are the final figures he arrives at for ferries and other major modes of transport:

Mode of transport Average greenhouse emissions (kg CO₂-equiv. / passenger-km)
Air 0.24
Car 0.09
Ferry 0.17
Bus 0.02
Rail 0.04

There are caveats and significant uncertainties attached to all these figures, but even taking them as order-of-magnitude estimates indicates that the train produces far fewer greenhouse emissions than the ferry.

Estimating the relevant distances for your Stockholm-Warsaw trip with Google Maps gives me:

Route Distance (km) Emissions (kg CO₂-equiv. / passenger)
Air, direct 800 192
Ferry + Rail via Gdańsk 570 + 350 97 + 14 = 111
Rail via Hamburg 1800 72

I didn’t do the maths for "Berlin Night Express" route, but I imagine it would be similar to the train-only route since the Trelleborg-Sassnitz crossing is a short one.

10/13/2012 11:22:14 PM

Comparing aeroplanes and trains shows that aeroplanes are very much the least ecologically friendly mode of transport. As an example from http://www.seat61.com/CO2flights.htm:

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A site which has some limited data comparing plane, train and car+ferry gives us the following data, but I would assume that the car emissions skew the numbers somewhat, which leads me to believe that the ferry could be the lowest impact:

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Caveat: these only take CO2 into account, and there are many other ways transport impacts the environment.

Credit:stackoverflow.com‘

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Hello,My name is Aparna Patel,I’m a Travel Blogger and Photographer who travel the world full-time with my hubby.I like to share my travel experience.

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