Conference on Environmental Science and Technology

As the emission reduction of maritime transport becomes an increasingly important objective, passenger maritime services face mounting pressure to adopt cleaner practices. However, market-oriented strategies for reducing emissions often rely on consumers’ willingness to pay more for environmentally friendly transport—an assumption that does not consistently hold true in practice according to current academic research. This study investigates willingness to adopt and willingness to pay toward two distinct business models in passenger maritime transport, both offering potential for emission reductions without relying on conventional regulatory or taxation-based mechanisms. The first model centers on cruise ferries, which reduce sailing speeds and thus significantly lower fuel consumption and emissions. Cruise ferries are widely developed in the Nordic region as well as other parts of the World such as the North Sea, Japan and Chile. These vessels compensate for longer travel times by enhancing the onboard experience through upgraded amenities, thereby repositioning travel time as leisure time. The second model explores on-demand transport solutions for small island regions, made feasible by recent advances in battery-electric vessel technology. These smaller vessels provide higher service frequency, lower waiting times, and improved inter-island connectivity, while offering an inherently cleaner mode of travel. Using a stated preference survey and discrete choice modeling, this study quantitatively assesses individuals' willingness to shift toward these modes. The findings suggest that well-designed, service-oriented business models—rather than externally imposed policies—can effectively drive the decarbonization of passenger maritime transport. Cruise ferries and on-demand transport offer compelling, user-centered pathways that align environmental goals with improvements in both quality of service and level of service. The behavioral insights presented in this work are essential for the design of economically viable and publicly acceptable low-emission transport services, and have important implications for multiple stakeholder groups such as policy-makers, operators, terminal administrators etc. Funding: This paper has been supported by the NAVGREEN project that is funded by the European Union through the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF), under the Action “Flagship actions in interdisciplinary scientific fields with a special focus on the productive fabric” (ID: TAEDR-0534767)