Now is the time to start expanding services, or at least to start thinking about it.By Peter A. Buxbaum, AJOTShort-sea carriers, those water transportation providers that shuttle containers back and forth between hub and feeder ports, are experiencing the same contraction in volumes as the rest of the industry. Yet some of them still feel the time is ripe to expand their services along the “marine highway,” or to plan for expansions. “Our industry is pretty much connected to the same import-export business as the steamship lines,” said Kevin Mack, vice president for business development at Columbia Coastal Transport LLC. “The reductions in volume we are seeing are directly related to the downturn in the rest of the economy.” Nonetheless, Mack sees bright spots. “We are getting inquiries from people we haven’t talked to in a while,” he said. “Carriers that have not before entertained the coastal feeding of cargo are considering how to change the way they operate because business is low. They are talking about how to reduce costs with coastal feeding to and from hub ports instead of calling on every port. They are looking beyond the box and looking at things they have not looked at in a while.” Mack also has found increased interest in the use of coastwise shipping for the sake of congestion mitigation. “Some people foresee that the federal highway fund is not going to have enough revenue,” he said. “They are looking at alternatives to trucking between one port and another in order to reduce the damage to the highway system.” Scott Fernandez, vice president for coastwise shipping at Horizon Lines, sees things somewhat differently. “The economy has slowed down and truck and rail volumes are at low points,” he said. “Fuel costs have also come down and that has taken some of the momentum out of the demand to relieve congestion at ports and on highways.” As a result, the approach some carriers, including Horizon, have taken is to shift to more of a preparatory mode for the longer term in anticipation of an eventual economic rebound. That preparation includes discussions with the Maritime Administration on key future services and projects, especially as they relate to congestion mitigation. Meanwhile, Columbia Coastal, as well as a few other carriers, have seen fit to expand their portfolio of services. On March 29, Columbia Coastal resumed a barge service connecting the ports of Portland, Maine and the Port of New York and New Jersey. “We believe that key importers and exporters in Northern Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine and southern Canada will benefit from Columbia Coastal’s marine highway alternative for freight movement,” said Mack. “The resumption of our Portland Shuttle Service presents a great opportunity for shippers to avoid terminal congestion, over-the-road weight restrictions and the shortage of truck power that often impedes cargo flow.” The expansion of service also enables steamship lines to offer through bills of lading to and from Portland, Mack noted. The company plans to utilize the Columbia Charleston, a 450 TEU for the Portland service. Columbia Coastal, which has been operating since 1990, operates a fleet of seven container barges in regularly scheduled services linking five ports on the US Atlantic seaboard, and also serves Freeport and Cuba on demand. The company’s barges range in capacities from 450 to 912 TEU. Columbia Coastal is not alone in its recent expansion of it services. The James River Barge Line also initiated a new service in December 2008, linking the port of Norfolk with the inland port of Richmond, along the James River. The inaugural trip on December 1 for 64 Express, as the service is known, carried 86 containers from Hampton Roads to various points along its 100-mile route to Richmond. The new service is being patronized by MeadWestvaco Corp., an international packaging company, Luck Stone Corp., a crushed-stone producer, tobacco company Philip Morris USA Inc., as well as the steamship line K Line Amer