Dutch shortsea operator Transfennica announced in November that their Motorway of the Seas route from Bilbao to Portsmouth and Zeebrugge would cease in December. Due to increased tariffs as a result of increased running costs created by the 2015 sulphur emissions ruling, Transfennia estimates that the majority of traffic will return to road and rail.

Ironically the Portsmouth calls that began in May contributed to the demise of LD Lines’ Poole-Biscay services in September so only Brittany Ferries will remain on UK-Spain sailings. Transfennica, part of the Spliethoff group, launched this Motorways of the Sea service in 2007 with a €6.8 million contribution from the European Union’s Marco Polo initiative, designed to encourage a modal shift from road to sea. That particular project was named Ro- RoPast France because it aimed to take traffic off France’s congested roads. Funding ran from September 2007 until December 2011, when an estimated 8.4 billion tonnekilometres of goods shifted from trucks to ships. Spliethoff has so far equipped six of Transfennica’s ships with scrubbers.

The rest of the line’s 15 vessels are expected to be burning low-sulphur fuels from January, with a surcharge imposed to cover the extra costs. Until October the service employed the 24,688gt/2003 built sisters Stena Forerunner and Stena Forecaster with the latter then being replaced by the 26,469gt/2002 built UND Atilim. The withdrawal of Transfennica’s service from Portsmouth is another setback for the port after DFDS announced in September that it would close its lossmaking Le Havre- Portsmouth service at the end of 2014.