Working on the waterborne logistics of the future

The design process of the IWT Demo Use Case in the SEAMLESS research project has started with a workshop at DST on 1 June 2023.

 

On 1 June 2023, researchers from Institute of Shipping Economics and Logistics (ISL), National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), SINTEF Ocean, Voies Navigables de France (VNF), Institut Droit International des Transports (IDIT), University of Belgrade (Faculty of Transport and Traffic Engineering), and DST have gathered physically (and virtually) to attend the IWT Demo Use Case workshop at the premises of DST in Duisburg.

The workshop centered on the status quo of waterborne logistics and future opportunities and challenges. (Photos: NTUA, DST)

The workshop led by ISL took place as part of WP 2 (Redesigning Logistics) of the SEAMLESS project. During the workshop, the participants have developed a common understanding of the existing transport concepts in the European IWT sector, particularly in northern France, Belgium, the Netherlands, along the Rhine and in the West German canal network. Similarly, the logistics environment including the stakeholders involved, the service concepts, fleet aspects, and topics related to port and infrastructure have been scrutinized. In addition, the researchers have identified opportunities and challenges of the envisioned logistics concepts redesigned in the SEAMLESS project, and derived pending questions regarding the demo setting. The full-scale demonstration of the autonomous waterborne logistics service in the IWT sector is supposed to be conducted at a later stage of the four-year project.

The guests took a tour of the testing facilities of DST and had the opportunity to steer an inland vessel in the nautical simulator SANDRA II. (Photos: DST)

Apart from the workshop blocks, the colleagues had the opportunity to take a look at the various testing facilities of DST (incl. our Port Research Lab HaFoLa, our Test and Control Centre Autonomous Inland Shipping VeLABi, our nautical simulator SANDRA II, and our towing tanks).

 

The SEAMLESS project has a project volume of almost 15 million euros and has officially begun its 48-month project duration on 1 January 2023.

Learn more about the SEAMLESS research project here: SEAMLESS

 

Contact:

Cyril Alias, Phone: +49 (0)203 / 99 369 52, Mail: alias@dst-org.de

 

The SEAMLESS project receives funding from Horizon Europe, the European Union’s key funding programme for research and innovation, under grant agreement No 101096923.