Pro Danube - News

: 24 June 2021

Pro Danube welcomes NAIADES III

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Pro Danube welcomes the adoption of the "NAIADES III: Boosting future-proof European inland waterway transport" action plan, and the stated commitment to "(...) shift more freight transport on inland waterways, and set the sector on an irreversible path to zero-emissions, underpinned by a paradigm shift towards further digitalisation, as well as accompanying measures to support the current and future workforce. Meeting these core objectives will require an integrated approach and a basket of measures incorporating transport, environmental, digital, energy and fiscal policies, backed up with financial incentives (...)".

In its capacity as the representative of the Danube IWT sector, Pro Danube was actively involved in the preparation process towards the action plan, acting as a gateway between the private sector and the EU decision-making entities. Whilst emphasizing the urgent need to adapt to the strict environmental objectives as stipulated in the European Green Deal and the Sustainable and Smart Mobility Strategy, Pro Danube highlighted that the sector needs continuous support to be able to cope with these future challenges, emphasizing that greening techniques and the innovative pathway come with a huge cost. It is therefore of utmost importance to secure clear and well-defined further EU policy, financing, and funding instruments in order to boost new technologies and enable IWT businesses to efficiently incorporate them. This is an essential prerequisite to achieve a climate-neutral European transport system by 2050.

NAIADES III was tailored to accomplish the ambitious climate goals of the European Commission, acting as the pillar of the pathway towards a climate-resilient, digital, and reliable inland waterborne transport system. Pro Danube is looking forward to support the implementation of the action programme by its involvement in the Platina3 project.

: 16 June 2021

LASTING questionnaire dedicated to the European waterborne transport RD&I community

Let us please raise your attention to the H2020 LASTING questionnaire dedicated to the European waterborne transport RD&I community with the ultimate goal of increasing its impacts. The responsible H2020 LASTING consortium of which Pro Danube is part of - will analyze the results of the questionnaire, identifying innovation needs and information gaps, and report directly to the European Commission. This makes it an ideal occasion for all waterborne transport community members and their stakeholders to share their experiences with waterborne RD&I projects, stressing their innovation needs and delivering valuable inputs for closing potential information gaps.

The questionnaire will be open until the beginning of next week (June 21st 12.00h) and is available here.

: 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.