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Honest answer: for most running cars, RoRo is the best value. Your car is driven onto a vessel, parked, strapped down, then driven off at the far end. A container costs more and buys you three things: a sealed box, room for belongings, and a sailing on routes RoRo doesn't serve. Share a container and you split the cost. Book one to yourself and you're paying roughly twice RoRo.

How does RoRo actually work?

RoRo means roll-on, roll-off. The vessel is a purpose-built car carrier with decks stacked like a multi-storey car park.

You deliver the car to the port compound by the cut-off date. A professional port driver takes it aboard, parks it in its slot, chocks the wheels and lashes it to deck rings with straps. Nothing gets stacked on top of it. At the other end another driver takes it off, and it sits in the destination compound until customs release it.

It's cheaper for a simple reason. There's no packing, no crane, no container to hire, and cars are exactly the cargo the ship was designed to carry. On the same lane, a shared container typically costs about 1.3 to 1.6 times the RoRo freight: roughly £250 more on a short Mediterranean route, and up to £900 more on a long haul like Australia.

Frequency helps too. On busy lanes out of Southampton, Tilbury or Bristol, RoRo sailings run weekly or fortnightly, so you're rarely waiting long for space.

The trade-offs are real, though. The car has to drive on and off under its own power. Keys travel with the vessel. And the interior needs to be empty, which we'll come back to. For a broader breakdown of what sits inside a shipping price, see our car shipping cost calculator.

How does container shipping work?

Your car goes inside a steel box, secured to the floor, and the box goes on a container ship. There are two versions of that, and they cost very different amounts.

Shared container

Also called groupage or consolidation. Two to four cars share a 40ft container, each one strapped to the floor by the wheels, sometimes on a rack so one sits above another. You pay for your share of the space rather than the whole box.

The catch is timing. Your car may wait at the depot until the container fills. That can be a few days or a couple of weeks.

Private container

Sole use. One car in a 20ft container, or two cars in a 40ft, or one car plus a household worth of boxes. It's loaded at a UK depot, secured, and closed with a numbered seal that stays intact until it's opened at destination under customs supervision.

Both container options need handling at both ends: loading, securing, unloading, and depot time. That handling is where most of the extra money goes.

Can I put belongings in the car?

With RoRo, generally not. Most lines allow the factory kit only: spare wheel, jack, tool roll. Loose items tend to get removed at the compound or the booking gets refused. The compound isn't secure storage, and the car will be handled by several different people.

With a container, usually yes, as long as it's declared. That turns your shipment into a vehicle plus personal effects, which is a different customs conversation with its own paperwork. Many countries treat used personal effects separately from the vehicle import, and some allow a relocation allowance that a container makes practical.

Which is safer, honestly?

Both are safe when they're done properly. Car carriers move very large volumes of vehicles every year, and lashing a car to a deck is routine work for the people doing it.

What a container adds is a physical barrier and a seal. That matters if your car is high value, unusually desirable, or heading somewhere you'd rather it wasn't sitting in an open compound for a week.

When damage does happen on RoRo, it's usually cosmetic and usually happens at a handover point rather than at sea. A kerbed alloy. A bumper scuff. Small things, but annoying to argue about after the fact.

Higher-value cars often justify enclosed transport at both ends too, not just at sea. Our classic car shipping guide covers that in more detail.

When do you not get a choice?

• The route doesn't sail. Some destinations have no regular RoRo service, or the service is seasonal. Container is simply the only way in.
• The car doesn't run. No drive means no roll-on. A non-runner is normally winched into a private container, which costs more and needs arranging in advance. Say so at quote stage.
• The car is lowered, modified or oversize. Ramp clearance is a genuine constraint on some vessels.
• Insurance requires it. Above certain values, cover is easier to place on sole-use container.
• Import rules. Some countries have inspection or documentation requirements that suit one method better than the other.

Route habits differ a lot. RoRo is the workhorse on lanes like the UK to Mombasa, while container is far more common on longer runs such as the UK to Australia, where quarantine and cleaning standards are strict.

So which should you pick?

• Everyday car, popular route, nothing inside it. RoRo. This is most people, and it's the sensible default.
• Classic, modified or high value. Private container, enclosed at both ends where it's offered.
• Moving house and taking the car. Container with declared belongings. Often cheaper overall than shipping a car and a household separately.
• Two cars going the same way. One 40ft private container usually beats two RoRo bookings.
• Car isn't running. Ask before you assume a price. It changes the method and the cost.
• Cheapest possible, flexible on dates. RoRo, and stay flexible on the sailing.

Where does RollShip fit in?

RollShip is a booking service. We're new, run by people with real UK freight-forwarding operations experience, and we don't own ships. What we do is put your job in front of vetted UK specialists and come back with itemised quotes, usually within 24 hours.

The form at rollship.co.uk/#quote has method cards for RoRo, shared container and private container, plus a "Recommend for me" option if you'd rather we made the call based on the car and the route. You pay on confirmation, not before. Our booking fee is £99 while we are launching, rising to £199, and it shows as a visible line on the quote rather than being buried in the freight price.