InnoWaTr

Transport by inland waterways (IWT) is the most efficient way of hinterland transport per t-km and contributes to less congestion on roads. IWT energy carriers are fossil based, emissions are to high in IWT. The world is fragmented, access to innovation is poor, multimodal transport leads to large growing emission.

The project overall objective and the expected change your project will make;

InnoWaTr will green 8 IWT freight streams, create synergy, unlock new business  opportunities, remove barriers by building, managing new freight flow coalitions, (FFC’s). Align inland waterway decision makers from shipping, technology, logistics, finance, training, policy in 8 NSR regions that adopt new solutions.

– We will get insight how FFC’s dynamics work, how they can work together, do’s and don’ts, we will produce blue prints for new FFC’s.

– Steps in automated mooring, automated sailing, more safety for crew and less crewing costs, less shortage of crew availability.

– Shipowners, logistic (public-private) partners have experience and easy access to greenest IWT solutions.

– Citizens benefit of cleaner air, less emission, less congestion in 8 FFC regions.

– Awareness on Fit 4-55 targets, where are we and what is our roadmap?

– We expect by 2025 10 new alliances in the NSR will start inspired by InnoWatr showcases, leading to cleaner transport and less road

congestion in cities.

Critical mass for innovation in IWT is poor. Regions tend to develop own solutions often not being aware of best solutions available.

Certification and regulation barriers need harmonization also on EU level.

Many greening policies target shipowners but they are the weakest shackle in the logistic chain; they depend on what freight owners want to pay and their OPEX-CAPEX costs do not allow innovation. In our quadruple (civil-economic-public-education) freight stream approach we involve both shipowners, freight owners, logistic partners etc. We look at the freight stream as one inclusive business case.

The Avatar project focusses on urban freight distribution using inland waterway transport. It aims to investigate technologies to automate and coordinate vessels, and vessel fleets, in corridors between consolidation centres located at 5 to 15 kilometres outside city centres, and city terminals. Furthermore, it aims to develop and deploy zero-emission vessels in this context. The results and insights on fleet coordination, as well as on automated close-encounter maneuvering, can be used in the Living Lab of IW-NET.

The average external cost (congestion, accidents, air pollution, climate, noise,…) for inland waterway transport  (IWT) accounts for 3.9 €cent/tkm, whereas for road transport this is 70% higher [TU Delft, 2018]. However, w.r.t urban freight transport (UFT), vessels (< 300T) are currently not economically viable, already resulting in the demolishment of over 12% of small vessels (CEMT I-II) in the last decade. Crew costs for these vessels account for up to 60% of the total shipping costs. Increased automation will be critically important to ensure a sustainable and economically viable future on this scale.

The AVATAR project aims to tackle those challenges by developing, testing and assessing adequate

technologies and business models for urban autonomous zero-emission IWT. Through this, the project unlocks the economic potential of urban vessels and corresponding waterways, increases available solutions for full-cycle automation and sets up a sustainable supply chain model for urban goods distribution and waste return.