A greater awareness on the reduction of pollution from transport vehicles is increasingly manifest, and also the marine transport has been recently involved by specific normative on the matter. In particular, the European Community has put into force various antipollution directives for the inland waterway transport, which shall set up a deep evolution in the next few years. A possible solution may be represented by the adoption of hybrid-electric propulsion systems on board. In such a direction many applications have been made for large merchant and naval ships, but for small vessels very few experiences have been till now carried out.

This paper presents the results of the conversion of the propulsion system of a typical small passenger vessel operating in the Venice Lagoon from a conventional system based on Diesel engine to a hybrid-electric one. The vessel has been built, and can be considered an useful and precious existing test bench to validate such technologies in terms of eco-friendliness, energy efficiency and reliability.