For your business
For brokers — the empty-leg market
A vessel in ballast costs almost the same to run as a loaded one and earns nothing. VPM can tell you which vessels are about to sail empty, and where to.
The gap
The large freight exchanges match containers and trucks. Short-sea ballast legs — a general-cargo or ro-ro vessel repositioning empty across the Baltic or North Sea — are almost invisible on them. The owner feels the cost; there is no easy place to sell the space.
What VPM can surface
- A prediction of where a vessel is heading next, days ahead.
- A draught reading that indicates it is running in ballast — arriving with capacity to spare.
- Put together: "this vessel reaches this port around this date, empty" — the opening line of a fixture conversation.
Where this stands
In development
The prediction and the load signal both exist and run today. A market-facing interface for spare capacity is not built yet. If this is your business, talk to us early — this is a segment we want a design partner for.
Related
The same ballast signal feeds an emissions angle — the CO₂ of voyages that moved no cargo. See Emissions.