With the U.S. Maritime Administration in the process of redefining the country’s “Maritime Highway” – a mapping project that will create national short sea shipping routes – a few Rhode Island businesses and the Quonset Development Corporation (QDC) are pushing for the inclusion of local ports.

The QDC, backed by the R.I. Economic Development Corporation, and three Providence industrial businesses have asked, separately and in writing, to have ports in Providence and North Kingstown to be included on the maps, a necessary step to be included in approved shipping routes.

It’s now up to the U.S. Maritime Administration, known as MARAD, to decide whether Rhode Island could be a hub for the shipping method.

Last October the U.S. Department of Transportation granted MARAD approval to designate marine highway corridors. There isn’t a deadline set for the announcements about which ports will be included, QDC spokeswoman Dyana Koelsch said last week.

While being included on the maps is necessary to accommodate short sea shipping, it is unclear if that would commit communities to pursue that business. Koelsch said that if Quonset is designated as a Marine Highway port, QDC would “retain control of the Port of Davisville, and also what ships it would allow to call there.” QDC would also decide how much would be invested in infrastructure. It’s also unclear exactly who would run a short sea shipping port at Quonset. QDC would probably run it, but a private business might be brought in instead, Koelsch said. Local cost and return estimates – including the number of jobs and impacts to highway traffic – haven’t yet been calculated.

A spokesman for MARAD did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

Widely used in Europe, short sea shipping relies on vessels – smaller than deep-draft container ships – that would carry 53-foot trailers along the coast. Instead of offloading containers at a large port and having them trucked along Interstate 95, international shipments would instead be parceled out to the ship that would travel along the coast.

“These vessels would have roll-on-roll-off, 53-foot trailers,” Promet Marine Services President David A. Cohen said. “And they would carry hundreds of trailers and would travel, basically, like a bus route. Eight o’clock in the morning, they are in Providence, 5 o’clock in the afternoon they are in New London, etc., etc., up and down the eastern coast.”