BATON ROUGE - The U.S. Department of Transportation as designated the container-on-barge shuttle service between the Port of Greater Baton Rouge and the Port of New Orleans as a Marine Highway Project.

The designation could allow federal funds to be used to purchase equipment.

The service, which was launched in late July by SEACOR AMH, uses the Mississippi River to transport shipping containers between the two ports.

Robert Marionneaux, director of governmental affairs for the Baton Rouge port, said the service takes "at least a couple of hundred" 18-wheelers off of Interstate 10 between the two cities.

He says Dow and Shintech have been using the container on barge service to transport chemicals from their Baton Rouge-area plants to the Port of New Orleans.