Reduction in CO2 emissions in RoRo/Pax ports equipped with automatic mooring systems

Faced with the unavoidable reality of the emission of pollutant gases by vessels both while sailing and when performing in-port manoeuvres, the international community has devised an extensive set of rules to limit greenhouse gas emissions and the emission of other pollutants which are bad for our health. In order to make these reductions in the emissions, the areas addressed are the engine regime or speed control, the quality of the fuel used, the state of conservation of the vessel and its hull or the time taken to perform the manoeuvres of mooring and unmooring. One factor which is having a strong influence on this last aspect is the installation in commercial ports of Automatic Mooring Systems using suction cups (AMS). These devices, which help to reduce considerably the time required to perform the mooring and unmooring manoeuvres, allow the times taken in operations for making steady a vessel to land and of releasing it to sail away to be reduced from some tens of minutes to a few seconds. The aim of this work is to verify the effect of the AMS on the emission of pollutant gases in the surroundings of the installations devoted to Ro-Ro/Pax vessel traffic. In particular, will focus on the CO2 emissions produced by vessels during mooring operations using two different calculation methodologies (EPA and ENTEC), first when using traditional mooring methods as a means of securing the vessel to the dock and second when using only the AMS, to finally carry out a comparison of the results. Will conclude with a discussion on the values of the reduction in emissions obtained and the advantages of installing AMS in commercial ports. In the RoRo/Pax terminals in which the AMS is installed and operating, a reduction in CO2 emissions of 97% has been estimated.