This project aims to promote the opening of cabotage lines by creating partnerships between ship owners, shipyards, dockers, and public and private bodies and to develop connections between the ports with heavy maritime traffic. It establishes inventories of the existing infrastructures and studies the supply and demand for transport to define the necessary lines and develop Short Sea Shipping (SSS) systems using the Motorways of the Sea (MoS). To meet their objectives, the project intends to set up the following:- Creation of a working and debating cluster between the companies and institutions which can work together to integrate traffic and tariffs under an SSS + MOS scheme, then evaluation of the results;- Inventory and general evaluation of the infrastructures, technical means and procedures, and an outline sketch of the infrastructures to be implemented;- A compilation of information and studies into the supply and demand for transport;- Definition and outline of the SSS + MoS transport lines and the infrastructures required in a port perspective and compared to specific units of transport for each transport route;- Creation of an information platform (www.einfoleet.com), to obtain online information on costs, routes and times of transport and to raise awareness of this mode of transport;- Definition and outline of pilot projects for using regional SSS and quantification of their impact;- Publication of the tools created and the results obtained for the users and the beneficiaries, with a view to encouraging the effective installation of the SSS lines. Achievements: ✔ Creation of four working groups between the different partners of the project to continue to work together after the end of the project ✔ Setting up bases for working in a network: creation of a permanent network of partner ports with the intention of continuing their collaboration until at least 2013 ✔ Contribution to the improvement of "Short Sea Shipping" services and Motorways of the Sea, as an alternative or addition to road transport. This contribution has been focussed, on one hand, on increasing the knowledge of the characteristics of the different ports regarding the development of this type of line and services (infrastructures, potentialities,) and on the other hand, on the analysis of the technical, commercial and economic viability of the different lines ✔ Creation of tools aiming to continue after the period of the project. The studies carried out are particularly useful for cross-border regions, and the dissemination of the results, through seminars, conferences, and the project website, etc, constitutes an essential tool ✔ Creation of a technology platform to promote (through a simplification of procedures) short distance Maritime Transport, Motorways of the Sea, in the ATMOS project and the INTERREG Programme. This tool will make it possible to supply information common to all the stakeholders concerned by the SSS and to create international, standardised documents ✔ Pilot project: creating studies relating to the minimum restrictions and requirements necessary for a newly created SSS or Motorway of the Sea to be profitable in the medium term ✔ Trans-national coordination meetings (6 organised during the project in addition to the final seminar) ✔ Memory sticks with information about the project and key documents ✔ Final general seminar to present the results in Santiago de Compostela, in March 2007 (124 participants) ✔ Participation in numerous trade fairs, seminars and conferences (logistics fair in Vigo, Short Sea Shipping and Development of Territories, 8th Global Liner Shipping conference...) ✔ Creation of a website www.eu-atmos.info