Better capturing the flows of sea transport and the traffic over the Mediterranean Sea requires reliable geo-referenced maritime transport statistics
Palermo, Astoria Palace
Hotel, 8-10 May 2018
If statistics on ships calling, on passengers embarking or disembarking and on the volume of goods loaded and unloaded at a specific port are key to capturing the activity of a specific port, they do not tell much about the traffic of passengers and goods transported by sea. In order to understand these flows, it is necessary to have data on the origins and destinations of the ships, of the passengers and goods embarked. This is the subject dealt with geo-referenced maritime transport statistics.
These statistics also have the advantage of allowing a direct comparison of the statistics produced by two partner ports, that is, ports mutually declared as origins and destinations of these flows of traffic and transport. Such systematic comparisons are the subject of mirror exercises from which a lot can be learnt regarding the quality of the data produced.
In this context, the regional workshop organised by MEDSTAT IV will allow to take stock of the maritime transport statistics produced by all partner countries and to implement such mirror exercises between the geo-referenced statistics produced by their main ports. These exercises should allow not only to measure the gaps highlighted by the mirror statistics but also to identify possible sources for these gaps, to adjust the methods, systems and tools implemented within these ports and to improve the quality of these statistics.
Experts from the ENP-S countries statistics offices, Ministries of transport and port authorities have been invited to the workshop. They will debate on these issues and will try to identify the best practices.
