Plenty of potential for modal shift does exist for IWT in northern and northeastern Germany – but also for further optimization.

The register with selected projects and an overview of news and events within the field of inland waterway transport is now online and is updated regularly.

The project started with a meeting at BASF, after which DST began developing the tanker in a consortium. The aim was to significantly improve the tanker’s capacity, even at very shallow drafts, in order to improve supplies to the Ludwigshafen production site in the low water season. CFD calculations and model tests followed later, with promising results. BASF has now commissioned the shipping company STOLT to build the ship and put it into service by the end of 2022.

December 2020 research project MariData has started. It sets out to develop a Decision-Support-System (DSS) for sea-going vessels. At DST, the focus is on shallow water waves and the vessel’s hydrodynamic in such conditions.

The joint research project “FlaBi”, which is funded by the German Federal Ministry for Eco-nomic Affairs and Energy, was launched in December 2020. The project deals with the de-velopment of dedicated ships for extreme shallow water conditions. The DST is responsible for the coordination of the joint project and carries out its own sub-project “FlaBiTec”.

With the Horizon2020 project completing this month, the final demonstrator was presented at the Maritime Research Institute Netherlands (MARIN). At DST the superstructure to represent the results of two substantial work packages (WPs) has been designed and manufactured.

During his visit to DST, the transport minister of North Rhine-Westphalia, Mr. Hendrik Wüst, has handed over the grant approval of the new Port Research Lab to the consortium and visited the Test and Control Centre Autonomous Inland Shipping (VeLABi).