Pro Danube - News

: 01 June 2021

PhysICAL: accomplishments of Pro Danube highlighted

Pro Danube is hereby proud to report on the progress of PhysICAL, a leading research project dealing with the concept of Physical Internet for the logistics sector in Austria, co-funded by the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG). Fraunhofer Austria, ensuring the overall project coordination, has successfully launched an online campaign making use of the project’s Social Media channels LinkedIn and Facebook to present and promote each project partner, introducing their company profile, involvement and contribution to the Physical project.

Mid-May was the turn of Pro Danube Management, whose accomplishments were presented as follows:

“Pro Danube Management GmbH is a validated expert in the waterborne transport, a key actor contributing to shaping the digital and the ecological perspectives of inland shipping and port logistics. In the PhysICAL project, Pro Danube leverages and ensures that environmentally friendly and efficient inland navigation is integrated into cooperative synchromodal supply chain management of the future.”

: 06 May 2021

Update on PhysICAL

physical project final picture Pro Danube is hereby proud to report on the progress of PhysICAL, a leading research project dealing with the concept of Physical Internet for the logistics sector in Austria, co-funded by the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG).

On the 15^th of April representatives of the project consortium came together for a virtual meeting to kick-start a very important project workpackage covering one of the pilot activities which is dealing with wood & forestry products logistics.

In a workshop atmosphere, representatives of Steiermarkbahn, 4PL Intermodal, A1 Digital, Cargo Center Graz, Pro Danube Management, Wiener Lokalbahnen Cargo, Austrian Institute of Technology, Technical University of Graz and Fraunhofer Austria agreed on the next steps for the successful rollout of the related activities.

The focus of this workpackge is the development and use of a standardized, flexible, smart container for wood and wood products to enable smooth transshipping between the different modes of transport (truck, rail, barge). Integration within a digital platform is foreseen to enable all related logistics chain operations such as ordering of carrying containers, transport route optimization, traceability of the load, integration of billing software. For this purpose, several technological aspects need to be considered such as the adaptation of existing flat wagons of the narrow-gauge railways to container flat wagons, development and construction of prototypes of the smart containers as well as the development of an app solution. The discussion brought in several aspects such as pro & cons as well as risks for using such smart containers, as well as manifold details in terms of logistics operations planning.

The next steps envisaged are the consultations with highly experienced industry representatives, for a collection of good practices to support further the definition of technical specifications.

: 21 April 2021

The role of Inland Waterway Transport in European synchromodal logistics chains

Organised on the 8^th of April within the frame of the first PLATINA3 Stage Event, session 6 entitled “Let’s make IWT a reliable partner of synchromodal logistics chains using smart waterways”, addressed key aspects dealt with by two separate PLATINA3 project tasks, but at the same very complementary, – on the one hand Task 1.3 dealing with assessing the needs and requirements for integrating IWT into synchromodal logistics chains and, on the other hand, Task 4.3 touching upon digital & automation tools for inland navigation, inland & seaports.

Pro Danube Management GmbH together with the Austrian waterway administration viadonau held a three and a half hour interactive session with highly experienced speakers representing both the policy perspective as well as the industry needs & trends, speakers that have agreed to join forces and reflect on the challenges and opportunities to achieve a fully integrated transport system within a well synchronized and smart European transport network, with IWT being a reliable partner in the logistics chains.

In this sense, the perspectives of several speakers representing four focus areas have been successfully introduced, such as:

The policy framework side: the speaker from the European Commission/DG MOVE provided an insight into several relevant EU policies & actions in relation to transport & digital related initiatives, taking into account the environmental targets, initiatives meant to support - for example - the use of smart technologies that provide reliable fairway & port information and hence contribute to attracting new cargoes and volumes.
The branch organisation ALICE, the alliance for logistics innovation in Europe – representing the bridge towards the logistics sector arena, introducing the prerequisites for manufacturers/shippers and their supply chains to promote synchromodality and include IWT in their distribution network as well as to promote a smooth integration with the other modes of transport.
The third area covered was the industry side, having a dedicated focus on supply chain solutions – three top actors from the Danube Region active along European supply chains (among which the oil&gas company OMV, the trimodal container terminal WIENCONT & the logistics service provider Rhenus Logistics) reflected on smart technologies, tools and applications they are currently using in their daily operations as well as various requirements for - depending on which side of the supply chain they are - making use/providing fully integrated supply chain solutions & services.
The project side & their contributions – Besides the introduction to the PLATINA 3 project, the session presented three other funded projects (DIWA, PhysICAL, RIS COMEX) looking into solutions to support the sector in the digital development, giving the audience an insight to their research results.

At the end of the session, Pro Danube has highlighted its overarching approach to streamline the results achieved in the past years by means of dedicated projects and initiatives (for details please refer to https://www.prodanube.eu/) for the benefits of the Danube waterborne transport.

We hereby would like to use this opportunity and thank the organisers & moderators Mr Robert Rafael, Ms Ruxandra Florescu and Mr Juha Schweighofer, all speakers (Mr Mario Sattler, Mr Fernando Liesa, Mr Thomas Herics, Mr Harald Jony, Mr Gerhard Gussmagg, Mr Matthias Prandtstetter and Mr Mario Kaufmann) as well as participants for their valuable contributions and the interactive exchange of ideas aiming to a higher share of the competitive inland waterway transport in the complete logistics chains.

Presentations are available at: https://platina3.eu/event/budapest/

: 16 April 2021

Pro Danube at the Rhine-Danube Corridor Meetings

Pro Danube International was represented by its Chairman, Mr. Herfried Leitner, and its General Secretary, Mr. Robert Rafael at the 13^th Working Group Meeting of the Rhine-Danube Corridor on Ports and Inland Waterways. With Pro Danube being actively involved in the DIONYSUS project, which core objective is to address the main regional challenges in port infrastructure governance and planning in order to facilitate the integration of the Danube Region into smart and sustainable multi-modal transport chains, the meeting proved extremely fruitful from a multitude of perspectives. It provided a platform to discuss and present the ongoing proceedings directly affecting the legislative framework on inland waterway transport, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Danube riparian countries, and last but not least, information on the status quo of digitalisation and alternative fuels as well as on the current status of the revision of the TEN-T Regulation.

Regarding digitalisation – vital in making IWT more efficient - Pro Danube’s Chairman, Mr. Leitner, asked how the European Commission puts the advantages of digitalisation into balance: what is the concrete benefit for river ship owners since currently, they are not able to see the operating vessels on one, harmonised platform. The answer provided suggested that there is still the challenge of data protection while the expectation is that this issue, addressed by RIS COMEX, will be solved in the foreseeable future. The conclusions of the meeting and the collected information will feed into the ongoing proceedings of the DIONYSUS project.

In the aftermath of this meeting, the representatives of Pro Danube joined the 15^thOnline Meeting of the Rhine-Danube Core Network Corridor Forum. High on the agenda of the meeting was the presentation of the progress of the updated Study on the Rhine-Danube TEN-T Core Network 2021. The presentation addressed several aspects, such as: What has changed compared to the findings in 2017? Which bottlenecks still hamper multimodality? What is the status quo of ongoing projects? This and further relevant questions will be touched by the study which is expected to be published soon.

Pro Danube urged for the long-term solution for the fairway management works on the Romanian-Bulgarian joint Danube section. Its representatives also highlighted that besides the available depth in the fairway, it also has to be ensured that the port entrances are also providing the proper depth to enter/leave the port with loaded draught as on the fairway.

Other important aspects discussed in the framework of the meeting refer to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on multimodality and to the expected financing opportunities for the transport sector foreseen for the period 2021-2027.