News

With the third stakeholder-workshop successfully organised on 26 January in Vienna, an important step forward has been made in further fine-tuning and developing a strategic roadmap for the implementation of hydrogen infrastructure along the Danube. Funded by the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG), the aim of the exploratory project H2 meets H2O is to assess the feasibility and applicability of hydrogen supply along the Danube as logistics backbone from a technical, legal and socio-economic point of view. 

Pro Danube, in its capacity as project coordinator, provides input to the roadmap from a twofold perspective: on the one hand by reflecting the industry's perspective and on the other hand by investigating the multitude of financing and funding possibilities on the EU level for potential follow-up projects. 

The 23rd of November marked the closing event of a successful transnational partnership co-initiated by Pro Danube for the benefit of the Danube ports community - the DIONYSUS project. Supported by the Danube Ports Network, Pro Danube has successfully coordinated numerous knowledge-transfer & creation as well as capitalisation activities, facilitating synergies with EU transport policy initiatives and other port development-related projects.

Developed by Pro Danube, a video, highlighting the project's main achievements and its enduring impact on the well-being of Danube ports was officially launched in the frame of the final event. 

The video can be accessed here.

Under the lead of Duisport, the world’s largest and most advanced tri-modal inland hub terminal, 21 other project partners from Western, Central and Eastern Europe have met at the premises of Duisburg Port on the 7^th and 8^th of September to kick-start the ambitious project MultiRELOAD focusing on facilitating port solutions for efficient, effective and sustainable multimodality.

Inland ports are key for multimodal transport chains, for both continental and maritime transport. There are 225 inland ports in Europe, many of which act as key multi-modal logistics and economic hubs near urban nodes, providing mobility infrastructure and smart solutions for both passengers and freight.

MultiRELOAD enhances the collaboration between different freight nodes in Europe to jointly test innovations and create favourable market conditions for multimodal freight transport solutions. To this end, MultiRELOAD will demonstrate solutions in three Innovation Areas with specific aims by 2025, mirroring the measures of the EU’s Smart Mobility Strategy, as follows:

A) Smart multimodal logistics: facilitate a shift from road to rail & IWT of 5%;
B) Digital & Automated Multimodal Nodes and Corridors: increase operational efficiency by 20 % raise of handling capacity;
C) Innovative business models: leading to an average cost reduction of freight transport by 10%.

For a total of 36 months, the MultiRELOAD consortium comprising of ports, highly innovative technology, logistics and service providers, leading European research institutions and well-connected networks will cooperate intensely to facilitate significant modal shift to sustainable modes of transport, radical efficiency increase of supply chains and capacity-sharing (data, infrastructure, loading space, etc.) for all operators within the key Trans-European Transport Networks (TEN-T) Rhine-Alpine and Rhine-Danube Corridors.

Duisport is internationally highly connected and acts as a role model and digital innovation trendsetter on the logistic supply chains worldwide. In MultiRELOAD, duisport together with the Ports of Vienna (AT) and Basel (CH) will lead the transition of inland ports towards carbon-neutrality by jointly testing, demonstrating, evaluating and rolling out highly innovative multimodal freight solutions in seven different demonstrations structured in the three thematic innovation areas named above. MultiRELOAD demonstrators will be set up, implemented and evaluated by regional consortia with port authorities, operators, supported by technology and service providers, and relevant research organizations. All MultiRELOAD innovations promise to significantly increase the flexibility, service visibility and reduce the average cost of freight transport on average by 10%.

MultiRELOAD’s innovative solutions will be developed further towards sound business plans & models, ready for a wide uptake, thus improving the overall market maturity. The two already existing business incubators startport in Duisburg and thinkport Vienna will provide business angel expertise for new services & start-ups developing smart multimodal solutions. Finally, a wealth of final customers (i.e. logistics service providers, freight forwarders and cargo owners) will be directly involved by means of the MultiRELOAD User Forum for the validation of innovations, thus ensuring the market-readiness of solutions. 

The project receives funding under the Horizon Europe Call “Safe, Resilient Transport and Smart Mobility services for passengers and goods” | Call ID: HORIZON-CL5-2021-D6-01, Grant ID: 101069796

Project Consortium:

(Coordinator) duisport – Duisburger Hafen AG, Port of Vienna, Schweizerische Rheinhäfen, RhinePorts, Pro Danube Management GmbH, Transport Trade Services - TTS Austria, Advanced Security Engineering (ASE), FH OÖ Forschungs & Entwicklungs GmbH, FH OÖ Studienbetriebs GmbH, DST - Development Centre for Ship Technology and Transport Systems, Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der angewandten Forschung e.V., CargoBeamer, Rupprecht Consult - Forschung & Beratung GmbH, Rhine-Alpine Corridor EGTC, Hungarian National Association of Radio Distress-Signaling and Infocommunications (RSOE), Prodevelop, eYard, Alliance for Logistics Innovation through Collaboration in Europe (ALICE), Institut du Droit International des Transports et de la Logistique (IDIT), Smart Freight Centre, NOSTA Holding GmbH, Hungarian Federation of Danube Ports

Contact:

Project Coordinator                                                                                                                                                 
Jan-Christoph Maass                                                                                                                                                
Senior Project Manager – Research and Innovation                                                                                                  
Corporate Development and Strategy                                                                                                                       
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Partner responsible for this press release:
Robert Rafael / Ruxandra Matzalik Florescu
Managing Director / Senior Project Manager
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Given that navigation on the Danube section between rkm 563 to rkm 565 almost came to a complete standstill in the beginning of July 2022 with dozens of pushers, vessels, and hundreds of barges being forced to wait for the maintenance of the fairway by dredging, Pro Danube International, in its capacity as the voice of the Danube IWT industry, representing a wide network of businesses operating on the Danube, decided to submit a Call for Action on Co-operative Fairway Management in order to raise awareness on this problematic situation, urging for a proper long-term solution-finding process. This - reinforcing the similar proposal from September 2021 - includes quarterly meetings with the involvement of the IWT sector and the waterway administrations of Bulgaria and Romania. 

We also addressed the importance of starting to collect data about the limitations hindering the business on the fairway (closure, depth, width etc.) along the Danube section at least between rkm 563 to rkm 565. Current restrictions are mainly communicated verbally and – according to our knowledge - not officially administered for public access. This does not allow the creation of statistics on previous timeframes and even worse, cannot form an integral part of viable comparisons between past and future situations in order to see the concrete effects of dredging and maintenance activities on the businesses.

In the last days the situation on the above mentioned section became worse, and we are experiencing a complete standstill since the weekend 23-24 July 2022!

Pro Danube International's initiative furthermore highlights the fact that this issue has become unbearable and is posing a serious threat not only to business models but also to the overall trust, reliability, and economic viability of this mode of transport. This unfortunate situation is having a negative impact on the NAIADES III targets to significantly increase modal split and on the recently launched EU-Ukraine Solidarity Lane initiative aimed at supporting the export of Ukraine's agricultural produce. 

Pro Danube International´s facilitation proposal includes the arrangement of quarterly meetings as well as to start collecting basic data on the fairway limitations from the business perspective and is available for download here.