Advantages and Disadvantages of Ro-Ro ships

Advantages and Disadvantages of Ro-Ro ships

 

Advantages

Like container ships, ro-ro ships have high efficiency of loading and unloading. They load and unload containers by vehicle activities and the capacity reaches 1000~2000 tons per hour, which saving a great amount of loading and unloading workforces, reducing the docking time of ships and improving the utilization rate of ships. The operation of ships is fast and it is convenient to have direct combined transport between land and water. Moreover, it realizes the "door-to-door" direct transportation from the shipper to the receiver, which reduces the damage and errors during the transportation process.

Ro-Ro ships carriage don’t require lifting equipment neither on the ship nor bank. Even if the port facilities are very poor, the ro-ro ships can handle the cargo efficiently. What's more, the ro-ro ships are superior to container ships in that they do not need lifting equipment on the docks, nor do they need large-scale reconstruction, expansion and addition of equipment for loading and unloading .

Ro-ro ship has more adaptability. It not only can load the container, but also carry special cargoes and various kinds of bulk goods. There’s special steel ro-ro ship for steel pipe, steel plate, special vehicles ro-ro ship for railway vehicle, special dedicated ro-ro ship for drilling equipment, agricultural machinery. They can also be gathered together a variety of materials and used for military transportation. Thus, the ro-ro ship has broad application prospects.

 

Disadvantages

The disadvantages of Ro-ro ships are high center of gravity and poor stability. The structure of ro-ro ships is characterized by a large number of decks, usually 2~6 floors. In order to realize passing freely for vehicles in the cargo compartment, there is no transverse bulkhead inside and few pillars. Therefore, the structural strength and anti-sinking property of the ro-ro ships are poor. Moreover, less transverse bulkhead will affect the anti-sinking, deck strength is also affected.