Short-sea shipping has traditionally been one of Europe’s most dependable buffers for balancing road freight demand. But over the past eighteen months, the sector has reached an unexpected capacity ceiling. Vessel shortages, overloaded feeder networks, and inconsistent sailing frequencies have created ripple effects that now reach deep into the EU’s inland logistics. RoadFreightCompany observes that what was once a stable and predictable alternative to long-haul trucking has become a source of pressure that reshapes how companies plan their transport networks.
The capacity imbalance began when major carriers redirected vessels to long-haul trades in response to global schedule disruptions. This left European short-sea routes operating with reduced fleets, older vessels, and thinner frequency patterns. Ports such as Rotterdam, Antwerp, Gdańsk, and Algeciras report increasing difficulty aligning feeder schedules, particularly during peak import windows. The consequence is simple: when short-sea cannot absorb volume, that volume shifts inland.
Road freight, already under pressure from driver shortages and congestion, absorbs this shift in unpredictable waves. A surge in diverted ocean containers results in sudden demand spikes for FTL capacity. Even shippers who do not use short-sea directly feel the impact through higher rates and reduced availability. RoadFreightCompany tracks that in several EU corridors – especially Benelux–Germany and Poland–Italy – rate volatility has doubled during periods of feeder disruption.
One of the hidden consequences is the increased distortion of inland warehouse planning. Facilities that rely on predictable feeder arrivals face irregular unload patterns that strain labor scheduling and inventory flow. A warehouse expecting four containers at evenly spaced intervals may instead receive all four at once – or none at all – forcing urgent adjustments across the supply chain. When delays accumulate, shippers often convert cargo to road transport even when it is not cost-efficient, simply to stabilize lead times.
Another factor is the growing competition for equipment. When ocean carriers hold containers longer due to feeder delays, the inland availability of 40’ units drops sharply. This pushes transport companies to reorganize their fleet usage or rely on less optimal equipment. RoadFreightCompany has had to compensate by introducing flexible equipment strategies and expanding container repositioning programs to maintain service levels during feeder congestion.
The challenges extend to cross-border maritime corridors such as Spain–Italy and Scandinavia–Baltics. Here, capacity constraints have led to longer booking windows and stricter cut-off times. As a result, road carriers increasingly adapt departure schedules to align with fewer, less flexible sailing options. This requires shippers to plan further ahead and accept less agility in their transport timelines.
Despite the pressure, the situation is not without solutions. The companies that adapt most effectively share several behaviors: they integrate maritime and road planning into a single decision framework, they monitor feeder performance weekly instead of monthly, and they maintain alternative routing options ready for deployment. RoadFreight Company emphasizes that agility in multimodal planning now determines stability, not cost-saving alone.
The short-sea sector will continue facing structural constraints until fleet investments catch up with demand. In the meantime, shippers that treat maritime variability as a critical inland risk factor – and not a separate modal issue – will maintain more stable operations. Road freight is no longer simply a parallel mode; it is the first absorber of short-sea instability. Companies that recognize this dynamic can design more resilient networks and avoid the sudden operational shocks now common across European supply chains.