by Przemysław Myszka

Another year is behind us, another one under our moving feet. The past 12 months wouldn't be terrible if it weren't for 24 February: rounding up last year's transport highlights felt like watching a split-screen, with two distinct realities flashing in front of our eyes.

From our industry's perspective - minus the Russian aggression - the year 2022 was pretty decent as many positive developments took place, mainly out in the sea, but on land too. Logistics became a political thing in a more pronounced way than it has been thus far. In the current atmosphere, that's perhaps a welcomed transformation.

Politics and transport are gearing up to deal with whatever the future will bring (that is, whatever we geared it for in the past). Regarding the former, the piece from the Legal column explains what can be expected in the field of (scrutinising) state aid in the EU, an area of utmost interest to ports. Concerning the latter, we prepared a read in the Technology section that goes through groundbreaking tech trends that are already breaking the ground on how things are shipped globally.

Sustainability hosts articles that spotlight other tendencies re-shaping our industry, most notably the shippers and customers' increased interest in climate-friendly transportation or the push towards alternative green fuels (and here, I recommend a read from Technology about nuclear barges). The column also houses a very Baltic piece - on a Finnish group of companies set up with the intention to make shipping green many, many years before it became drip.

Maritime includes a variety of reading proposals - on cold ironing, the evolving reefer market, minimising and hopefully eliminating once and for all the instances when seafarers die by entering enclosed spaces on board vessels, and the why's and how's of better cooperation for increased uptake of clean technologies in shipping.

In a similar fashion to last year's BTJ Trip in Sweden, we write in Events about Stena Line's newest Baltic flagship, Stena Ebba, and her unique christening at the beginning of this year in Karlskrona (and, in general, 2022 brought about many more reasons for ferrying in the Baltic).

In Collector's corner, we stoop over the limitations of being an art admirer with millions to spend.

Last but not least, Transport miscellany - and more precisely, as our Roving Editor Marek Błuś calculated, its 100th edition! The entries were written in January, so this time no transport-booze stories (#dryjanuary), which doesn't mean we didn't prepare an exceptional selection of trivia! Modern wind-assisted propulsion being already a thing in the 1920s, seafaring/tough family life art from Norway, the Swedish army landing on the Åland Islands, and an aeroplane that flew from Finland to Australia (losing something subtle in the process).

I wish you nothing but a fantastic peruse! Download PDF