Cabotage is.. Features, characteristics of cabotage

2024 Author: Howard Calhoun | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 10:16

Surely you have heard about such a thing as "cabotage". It can be found both in the environment of logistics, and in historical literature, the media. Let's analyze in this article what it is - coastal transportation in the Russian Federation and other countries.

Historical definition

The word "cabotage" comes from the French. cabotage, the origins of which, in turn, are in Spanish. cabo - "cape". Coastal transportation is the navigation of a cargo or passenger commercial vessel between ports of the same state.

Historically cabotage - sailing without access to the open sea, from cape to cape. The ships of many of the first ships moved along the water surface in this way - the ancient Egyptians, Greeks, Romans and Vikings.

Cabotage today

Today, cabotage is:

• Swimming without leaving the borders of a certain state.
• Transport services (including loading and unloading) carried out by a foreign carrier within the territory of another country.

On thisa special type of fleet specializes in transportation - ships capable of sailing in limited areas at a small distance both from the coast and from ports.

Coastal shipping is a good option in two situations:

• Transportation between certain points by sea is more profitable than by rail or road.
• There is no possibility of laying between the start and end points of the surface road. As an example, the supply of the polar city of Norilsk with coasters, because there are no roads or railroads leading to this settlement.

Types of cabotage

Coastal transportation of passengers and cargo is divided into two large groups:

• Great cabotage. Transportation is carried out between ports of different seas of the same state.
• Small cabotage. Routes between ports of the same sea.

Both types of cabotage have the following advantages:

• Availability of sea shipment, which determines the simplicity and reliability of delivery.
• Low cost.
• Versatility - in dry containers you can transport a variety of goods. In addition, many carriers are classified as "heavyweights".
• Convenience of both loading and unloading containers.

Cabotage in the world

Greece leads the world in cabotage transportation of goods in the world - in this country the largest number of units of the corresponding fleet.

In the former Soviet Union, specifically for coastal transportation, they were conditionally combined into one sea:

• Bering, Okhotsk and Japanese.
• Arctic Ocean and White.
• Azov and Black.

The right side of the issue

Protection of the interests of their own merchant fleet is forcing the governments of different countries to make coastal transportation closed to foreign ships. In our country, such restrictions were first introduced in 1784. Then they touched only the Black Sea area.

And today in Russia coastal transportation is the prerogative of only the domestic fleet. However, there are a number of exceptions in the law: if there is an urgent need for transportation, but there are no suitable ships flying Russian flags, then it is permissible to use foreign water transport for cabotage purposes. This is carried out only with the permission of the Ministry of Transport of the state, under the strict control of customs legislation, and also without the right to enter ports closed to foreign ships.

Auto cabotage

Coastal road transportation is the movement of various goods on the territory of a certain country by a foreign transport company. This phenomenon, however, is prohibited by most of the world's states. In a number of others, for such activities, you need to obtain a certain type of license.

RF is no exception here. After crossing the Russian border, foreign freight transport is obliged to unload all its contents at the first point of its stop - only domesticcarriers. Regulates auto cabotage art. 7 of the Federal Law "On state control over the implementation of international road transport and on liability for violation of established procedures."

In particular, the law prohibits the commercial transportation of both goods and passengers by foreign transport between any points located on the territory of the Russian Federation. In case of violation, a fine of up to 20 minimum wages is imposed on the driver, and up to 50 minimum wages on the customer.

Air cabotage

In our age of globalization, unfortunately, not everywhere there is the possibility of free crossing of the borders of countries by air. Many states prohibit flights with landing on their lands or even flights of foreign aircraft between their own airports over the territory of their country. There are states that do not impose such prohibitions. Unfortunately, Russia is not yet one of the latter.

Cabotage today is not only sea, but also road and air transportation of both various cargoes and passengers. At the same time, they are all strictly regulated by the governments of world states, incl. and Russian.