35.1.1 Mission

The mission of roll-on/roll-off ships (ROROs) is to transport cargo that is capable of being rolled on to and off ships, thus eliminating the need for onboard or dockside lift-on or lift-off equipment.

Obviously any ship that used rolling of cargo onboard could be considered in a Chapter on ROROs. It would include such ships as multipurpose cargo ships, railcar ferries, car and truck ferries, trailer ships, car carriers, and any of these that also carry passengers, such as RORO/Passenger ships (ROPAX), cruise ferries, etc. Fortunately many of these are covered in the following chapters in this book:

• Chapter 27 - Multipurpose Cargo Ships,

• Chapter 34 - Car Carriers,

• Chapter 38 - Ferries,

• Chapter 52 - Heavy Lift Ships, and

• Chapter 53 - Forest Product Carriers.

This chapter will only consider these ships that are today identified as RORO ships. A special type of RORO has been developed to carry processed forest products such as finished lumber, plywood and paper reels. These will not be included in this chapter as they are described in Chapter 52 - Forest Product Carriers.

ROROs are an important link in the intermodal transportation network. ROROs can accommodate almost all types of intermodal and some heavy lift project cargoes. Road trailers are the dominating cargo for ROROs. Figure 35.1 shows the different types of road trailers and their typical dimensions.

Figure 35.1: Typical Road Trailers

The road truck and trailer system is the obvious RORO cargo.