Nearly €245 million awarded to Horizon 2020 transport projects

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INEA has signed grant agreements with 39 projects selected for funding under two Horizon 2020 calls – Mobility for Growth and Automated Road Transport respectively. They will receive a total of €243.8 million.

Most of the funding – some €200 million – will go to 36 projects selected under Mobility for Growth.

The remaining amount will go to three projects under Automated Road Transport.

The projects are expected to use research and innovation on equipment and systems for vehicles, aircraft and maritime vessels that will make them smarter, cleaner, safer, and more automated.

Projects will also focus on research on road users’ safety, sustainable mobility in urban areas and “smart electric mobility” in cities, improvement of the logistics systems’ performance, and resilience and optimisation of transport infrastructure.

They are expected to start their activities by 1 September 2018 at the latest.

Project examples:

Enabling safe multi-brand truck platooning for Europe

The main goal of the ENSEMBLE project is to pave the way for the adoption of multi-brand truck platooning in Europe to improve fuel economy, traffic safety and throughput. This will be demonstrated by driving six differently branded trucks (DAF, DAIMLER, IVECO, MAN, SCANIA, VOLVO) in one or more platoon(s) under real world traffic conditions across national borders.

The following objectives are defined: a) Achieve safe platooning for trucks of different brands, b) work towards the standardisation and achieve interoperable platooning, and c) real-life platooning showing a multi-brand platoon in real traffic conditions.

ENSEMBLE brings the key actors for deployment together which are all major truck OEMs (98% of the market) supported by other organisations, key stakeholder groups and relevant suppliers. The expected impact is on a Europe wide deployment of platooning with multi-brand vehicles in real, mixed traffic conditions.

The project pursues making transparent the economic, societal and environmental impact of decisions of platoon forming and dissolving. It also aims to modernise the transport system by finding an optimal balance between fuel consumption, emission level, travel times, and impact on highway traffic flow. This, in turn, will result in reduced impacts on climate change, air pollution, noise, health and accidents.

Project title: ENabling SafE Multi-Brand pLatooning for Europe (ENSEMBLE)

Duration: 36 months (01/06/2018 – 31/05/2021)

Budget: €26 million

EC funding:  €20 million

Project Coordinator: TNO

Hierarchical multifunctional composites for the aviation industry

The HARVEST project will develop structural composites (based on innovative thermoset 3R – repair, recycle and reprocess), autonomous electric integrated system for health monitoring and a wireless data transmission system. The innovative materials will be manufactured in purposefully developed pilot lines aiming to cut production time and costs.

The proposed technologies will be finally integrated in two aircraft demonstrators, testing elements with different temperatures and in quick heat dissipation conditions.

Project title: Hierarchical multifunctional composites with thermoelectrically powered autonomous structural health monitoring for the aviation industry (HARVEST)

Duration: 36 months (01/09/2018 – 31/08/2021)

Budget: €4 million

EC funding:  €4 million

Project Coordinator: 11 partners from 6 countries coordinated by University of Ioannina (Greece)

Charging infrastructure for electric vehicles

The GreenCharge project will empower cities and municipalities to make the transition to zero emissions and sustainable mobility. It will use innovative business models and technologies, and will provide guidelines for cost efficient and successful deployment and operation of charging infrastructure for electric vehicles.

Inspired by ideas from the sharing economy, the business models will focus on enabling the mutualisation of excess capacity of private RES, private charging facilities and the batteries of parked electric vehicles. Pilots will be carried out in Barcelona, Bremen and Oslo to demonstrate and evaluate the proposed approach.

Project title: GREENCHARGE

Duration: 36 months (01/09/2018 – 31/08/2021)

Budget: approx. €5.7 million

EC funding:  €5 million

Project Coordinator: 16 partners from 6 countries coordinated by SINTEF AS (Norway)

Enabling the transferability of cycling innovations

The HANDSHAKE project supports the effective take up of the integrated cycling solutions successfully developed by Amsterdam, Copenhagen and Munich, Cycling Capitals and world-renowned cycling front runners, to 10 highly committed Future Cycling Capitals: Bordeaux Metropole, Bruges, Cadiz, Dublin, Helsinki, Krakow, Greater Manchester, Riga, Rome and Turin.

The project strategic objectives are: to inspire the creation or refinement of holistic cycling visions and concrete transfer approaches; to foster the adoption of a multidisciplinary planning culture to consolidate future cycling policies and investments; to allow cycling to become a key element of urban transport; to improve cycling modal share and safety; to leverage the potential of cycling as a critical congestion relief tool; to leverage cycling to improve public health; to foster economic growth.

HANDSHAKE expects to improve cycling attractiveness by +52% and competitiveness by 17%, shift ca. 60.000 people to cycling with +34% in frequency of cycling use, traffic levels lowered by 6,34%,and CO2 savings of -3.706.000 kg CO2/year.

Project title: Enabling the transferability of cycling innovations and assessment of its implications (HANDSHAKE)

Duration: 42 months (01/09/2018 – 28/02/2022)

Budget: approx. €5 million

EC funding:  €4.8 million

Project Coordinator: 19 partners from 12 countries coordinated by ISINNOVA (Italy)

How were the projects selected for EU funding?

The submitted proposals were evaluated by external experts drawn from the European Commission’s independent expert database. Grant agreements were signed with the successful applicants within eight months of the submission deadline.

How will the projects be managed?

The projects are each implemented by a consortium of European partners. INEA will monitor their progress throughout the entire project life-cycle.

Overall, €12.2 billion has been earmarked for transport and energy research in Horizon 2020, the main EU’s funding programme for the 2014-2020 period. €5.3 billion of this amount will be managed by INEA resulting in approximately 800 projects.

Source: INEA

The port of Barcelona adapts 26 trucks for LNG to reduce emissions

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This is done under the RePort project, which is financed with European funds for regional development.

The port of Barcelona has adapted a total of 26 vehicles for its propulsion through liquefied natural gas (LNG) in an initiative led by the Port Authority of Barcelona in collaboration with ATEC, the Generalitat and Gas Natural, among other partners. The RePort project aims to promote the use of natural gas as an alternative fuel for trucks within the port area, with the aim of reducing polluting emissions. Within the framework of the project, the engines of a total of 26 trucks have been transformed into the dual-fuel modality. This adaptation allows the engines to use diesel and natural gas simultaneously, contributing to improve the air quality of the port and its immediate surroundings.

The RePort project is integrated into the Ris3cat Movilitat Eco Community, coordinated by Ficosa and co-financed with funds from the European Regional Development Fund, and managed by the Department of Action of the Generalitat de Catalunya. In addition to Ficosa and the Generalitat, the rest of the partners of the initiative, led by the port of Barcelona, are the Container Business Owners Association (ATEC), Gas Natural Fenosa, Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC), Idiada, the School of Engineering of East Barcelona (EEBE-UPC), Dimsport Spain, Renewable Technical Consulting (RTC) and the Escola Europea – Intermodal Transport.

On Tuesday the 12th of June a presentation of the project detailed the tests planned for the coming months of the 26 trucks to evaluate the effectiveness of the modification. During the presentation, the president of the Port Authority Sixte Cambra, underlined that the RePort project is part of the Catalan Port’s Plan for the Improvement of Air Quality. He stressed that this plan is extremely ambitious and that there is a need to increase the use of natural gas to achieve its objectives.

The control of gas emissions in trucks falls under the responsibility of IDIADA, while the Barcelona Supercomputing Center is responsible for the modeling of the dispersion of pollutant emissions from port activities in both port and city environments of Barcelona. In addition, the RePort project also includes the installation of a real-time monitoring system from Renewable Technical Consulting (RTC) onto each truck, wiht the aim of calculating the percentage of gas replacement along with various other parameters of the engine and the route. Gas Natural Fenosa is responsible for designing the logistics of the supply of natural gas along the main routes that the trucks make either originating or terminating in the Port of Barcelona to establish the points where it will be necessary to install points of supply of this fuel, as well as the cost that this would entails. Finally, the Escola Europea-Intermodal Transport has carried out an efficient driving course for the drivers of the 26 tractors powered by vehicular natural gas (NGV), training them also in safety and handling of this fuel.

For more information about the RePort project you can consult the project page or the Port of Barcelona’s website.

The Escola Europea promotes short sea shipping and sustainable transport at Spain’s biggest logistics fair – SIL

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The Escola Europea – Intermodal Transport has participated in the International Logistics Show of Barcelona – the annual logistics fair in Spain. Sharing a stand with one of its main shareholders –the Port of Barcelona­-, the Escola presented its training offer for the second semester of 2018 and promoted some of its projects; highlighting the growing influence and success of TransLogMED and Forma’t al Port.

In a presentation held on the last day of the fair, Ricardo Garcia highlighted the importance of short sea shipping and the motorways of the sea in the continued development of the Mediterranean corridor and the need to improve sustainable transport. With this in mind, the Escola has launched the TransLogMED project jointly with the Union for the Mediterranean. Through the promotion of international cooperation in transport transactions and by providing training in intermodal transport that knows no borders, the project aims to enhance the competencies and capabilities of transport and logistics operators from the Northern and Southern shores of the Mediterranean basin. The project has a scheduled lifeline of four years and will organise conferences and courses to implement its objectives.

In terms of its training offer, in the summer months the Escola will hold the second edition of its technical training for professionals, focused on Groupage Operations and Consolidation Centres (18-20 of June). This course will be followed by an edition of Escola’s SURCO Operations I, focusing on rail- maritime intermodality, which will take place in Barcelona between the 2nd and 4th of July. In mid-July it will be the time of the Escola’s first ever Summer School on Port Operations (9-13 of July), a course designed for all kinds of profiles, professional, academic or vocational. Finally, in the autumn, two editions of the Escola’s unique Motorways of the Sea Training (MOST) course will take place. The first of these, MOST Italy, will take place between the 29th of September and the 2nd of October and will focus on the intermodal routes with short sea shipping maritime links in Italy. The second course MOST Iberia (20-23 October) will take a closer look at the intermodal transport situation across the Iberian peninsula.

The Escola has been complementing its intermodal training package with the Forma’t al Port project, whose goal is to bring young students closer to the professional field of the port communities. For the past three years the Escola has worked with Catalan training centres on professional work experience programmes. The courses have been hugely successful and will now be extended to Italian centres through a sister project Formati al Porto.

Escola Europea to organise Motorways of the Sea Training courses for European professionals in autumn 2018

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This autumn the Escola’s MOST courses for professionals will return, with two editions scheduled for professionals coming from Italy and the Iberian Peninsula, respectively.

The aim of the MOST Management courses is to offer complete and concise training in intermodal maritime logistics, short sea shipping services and the motorways of the sea. The courses aimed at professionals combine lectures, workshops, terminal visits, navigation and networking. The course participants begin the theoretical training in intermodal transport and logistics at the headquarters of the Escola in Barcelona, and then board a Ro-Pax vessel of Grimaldi Lines en-route to Civitavecchia to continue the training along the short sea shipping route.

The Port of Barcelona, the Ports of Rome and Grimaldi Lines, three of Escola’s five founding partners, collaborate in the organisation of the upcoming courses in September and October. While MOST Italy will also be sponsored by Alis, RAM Spa, Assoporti, Confitarma and AssArmatori , MOST Iberia is co-sponsored by the Spanish State Ports (Puertos del Estado), the European Shortsea Network, the Spanish Shortsea Promotion Centre and the Portuguese Shortsea Promotion Centre–Intermodal Portugal. The teaching staff will comprise professionals from the European transport sector as well as academic experts.

The MOST Italy course will take place between the 29th of September and the 2nd of October. Its contents will focus more on intermodal transport in Italy itself, tailoring the contents for the course participants. MOST Iberia, similarly, will take place 20-23th of October and will emphasize intermodal transport aspects of the Spanish and Portuguese markets.

For more information on the Escola’s open courses head to the calendar section of our website.

European Ship Brokers and Agents choose Barcelona for its annual seminar

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The European Association of Ship Brokers and Agents (ECASBA) has chosen the city of Barcelona to celebrate its annual seminar this year.

In this way, the entity shows its support to the newly created Spanish Association of Consignment Agents (ASECOB), which already brings together a number of companies that carry out the activities of shipping agents and maritime agencies at a national level as well as the associations of consignees of the different ports of Spain.

A representative from the new association of Spanish consignee agents explained that this seminar is held annually in a community country, in alternation with Brussels.

This year it will take place on June 4 and 5 in Barcelona.

The first day will be held at the headquarters of the Escola Europea-Intermodal Transport. The first topic of the seminar’s agenda is the presentation of the SAILNET Programme, an exchange programme designed and powered by FONASBA in collaboration with the Escola Europea. The project aims to establish a network between education and training institutes in the maritime sector dealing with ports, shipping lines and logistics operators in order to strengthen skills across the seas. The project aims to reach its objectives using a study-internship alternation approach and better align them with the needs of the Blue Economy.

On Tuesday, June 5, the seminar will be held at the International Logistics Exhibition (SIL) in Barcelona. You can consult the full programme here.

“With a very high participation rate, the registration of professionals from Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy, Holland, Portugal, Slovenia, Sweden and Spain, as well as the International Association (FONASBA) has already been confirmed”, added the representative from ASECOB.

The conference will include round tables on current issues, with a special focus on digital transformation. The presentations will be given by outstanding representatives of the Spanish and community administration, industry associations and leading companies in the sector.

Source: Diario del Puerto

The Escola Europea to promote intermodal and sustainable transport

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The Escola Europea – Intermodal Transport will once again participate in the International Logistics Salon of Barcelona – the annual logistics fair in Spain.

Sharing a stand with one of its main shareholders –the Port of Barcelona­, the Escola will present its training offer for the second semester of 2018 and promote some of its projects; highlighting the growing influence and success of TransLogMED and Forma’t al Port.

In the summer months the Escola will hold the second edition of its technical training for professionals, focussed on Groupage operations and Consolidation Centres (18-20 of June). This course will be followed by an edition of Escola’s SURCO Operations I, focusing on rail- maritime intermodality, which will take place in Barcelona between the 2nd and 4th of July. In mid-July it will be the time of the Escola’s first ever Summer School on Port Operations (9-13 of July), a course designed for all kinds of profiles, professional, academic or vocational.

In autumn three editions of the Escola’s unique Motorways of the Sea Training (MOST) course will take place. The first of these, MOST Italy, will take place in September and will focus on the intermodal routes with short sea shipping maritime links in Italy. The second course MOST Iberia will take a closer look at the intermodal transport situation across the Iberian peninsula.

The Escola has been complementing its intermodal training package with the local Forma’t al Port project, whose goal is to bring young student closer to the professional ambience of the port communities. For the past three years the Escola has worked with Catalan training centres on professional work experience programmes. The courses have been hugely successful and will now be extended to Italian centres through a sister project Formati al Porto.

The other project to be promoted at SIL is TransLogMED. Through the promotion of international cooperation in transport transactions and by providing training in intermodal transport that knows no borders, the project aims to enhance the competencies and capabilities of transport and logistics operators from the Northern and Southern shores of the Mediterranean basin.

To find out more, come meet us at SIL at the stand D448 – E557. Alternatively you can write to info@escolaeuropea.eu.

IMO Begins Validating Autonomous Ship Operations

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The International Maritime Organization (IMO), the global regulatory body for international shipping, has started exploring how autonomous ships could operate safely, securely and in an environmentally friendly way.

As part of its investigation the IMO, which has provided the term Maritime Autonomous Surface Ships (MASS) to autonomous vessels, will look into how the ship operations may be addressed in IMO instruments.

The organization’s senior technical body, the Maritime Safety Committee (MSC), has endorsed a framework for a regulatory scoping exercise as work in progress.

Its framework includes preliminary definitions of MASS and degrees of autonomy, as well as a methodology for conducting the exercise and a plan of work.

For the purpose of the regulatory scoping exercise, MASS is defined as a ship which, to a varying degree, can operate independently of human interaction.

However, MASS could be operating at one or more degrees of autonomy for the duration of a single voyage.

IMO categories for autonomy:

  • Ship with automated processes and decision support: Seafarers are on board to operate and control shipboard systems and functions. Some operations may be automated.

  • Remotely controlled ship with seafarers on board: The ship is controlled and operated from another location, but seafarers are on board.

  • Remotely controlled ship without seafarers on board: The ship is controlled and operated from another location. There are no seafarers on board.

  • Fully autonomous ship: The operating system of the ship is able to make decisions and determine actions by itself.

As a first step, the IMO’s scoping exercise will identify current provisions in an agreed list of IMO instruments and assess how they may or may not be applicable to ships with varying degrees of autonomy and whether they may preclude MASS operations.

As a second step, an analysis will be conducted to determine the most appropriate way of addressing MASS operations, taking into account, inter alia, the human element, technology and operational factors.

The MSC, which met for its 99th session on May 16-25, 2018, established a correspondence group on MASS to test the framework of the regulatory scoping exercise agreed at the session and, in particular, the methodology, and report back to its next session, MSC 100 on December 3-7, 2018.

Speaking at the opening of the MSC meeting, IMO Secretary-General Kitack Lim highlighted the importance of remaining flexible to accommodate new technologies, and so improve the efficiency of shipping — “while at the same time keeping in mind the role of the human element and the need to maintain safe navigation, further reducing the number of marine casualties and incidents”.

Source: Port Technology

Demand for SSS increases in the Atlantic and Mediterranean façades in 2017

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The capacity offered in the Motorways of the Sea of the Atlantic facade has grown by 160%, while in the Mediterranean basin, the increase has been of 6%.

The Shortsea Promotion Centre of Spain has held a meeting of its Board of Directors in which the report of the Statistical Observatory of the Short Sea Shipping (SSS) in Spain for the year 2017 was presented.

The document demonstrated the growth of this type of transport along the Atlantic routes, with significant increases in terms of demand, and highlighted its recovery in the Mediterranean following the decrease of 2016. Specifically, the capacity offered for transport of road cargo in 2017 has grown by 32% in the Atlantic, and 8% in the Mediterranean.

However, although the number of lines offered has increased, the number of vessels used has been reduced. In the SSS alternative to road transport, the annual capacity offered in the ro-ro services has rebounded 42% in the Atlantic side, with 1.81 million linear meters, and 25% in the Mediterranean, with 4.13 million of linear meters.

With regard to the Motorways of the Sea, the capacity offered on the Atlantic side grew by 160% along the two motorways, while in the Mediterranean the increase has been of 6% along its three routes.

248 million tons

In total, short sea shipping transport in Spain has risen to 248 million tons in 2017, an increase of 6% over 2016, of which 19% correspond to domestic cabotage traffic and 81% to international traffic.

SSS of ro-ro cargo has risen by 8.1% to 21.1 million tons. It is important to note that on the Atlantic side the volume has been much lower, with 2.25 million tons representing an increase of 13.9%, than on the Mediterranean side which processed 15.25 million tons of cargo, 9.3% more.

In overall terms, in 2017 the average employment of the offer was 73.1%, a figure below the 80.1% registered in 2016. In the Atlantic side, it has been reduced by 53.3% due to a much higher growth of supply with respect to demand, while in the Mediterranean, employment has gone from 81.8% to 85.5%, for the same reason.

Source: Cadena de Suministro

Next Generation RoRo Freight and Passenger Ships Produce Zero Emissions in Port

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Latest Battery Technology, Solar Power and Unique Hull Features Halve Fuel Consumption. 

ITALY – DENMARK – CHINA – The name Grimaldi has been associated with shipping since 1348 and today the Grimaldi group operates several services under a variety of titles, but maintains at its heart RoRo ferry services throughout the Mediterranean. Last month the announcement was made that the company has ordered six new such freight and passenger vessels from the Nanjing Jinling Shipyard, China and once again a contract between the yard and Danish marine engineering and design group Knud E Hansen means further development to the already established Grimaldi/ Knud E Hansen design.

The design of the newbuilds was developed by the Technical and Energy Saving Department of the Grimaldi Group together with Knud E Hansen in close cooperation with the shipyard. The RoRo’s are known as the ‘Grimaldi Green 5th Generation’ (GG5G) and will have a length of 238 metres, a beam of 34 metres and a gross tonnage of 64,000 tonnes. They will be able to transport over 7,800 lane meters of rolling units, equivalent to approximately 500 trailers.

The ships, the first of which is expected to be delivered in 2020, will use electricity in port, courtesy of large lithium batteries, thus guaranteeing zero emissions whilst at berth. These batteries will be recharged during navigation, through shaft generators adding the so-called peak shaving system, and with the aid of 600 m2 of solar panels, well suited to the three Grimaldi Lines vessels working in the Mediterranean environment, but still effective in the Baltic where the balance will be deployed on behalf of Finn Lines.

Grimaldi has invested a total of over $400 million and the new vessels are capable of carrying more than twice the quantity of vehicles than the largest of the incumbent ships operated by the company. As fuel consumption is the same as the previous craft, the energy saving when fully loaded will equate to 100%. There are several patented features in the design already together with more environmentally friendly features. The dreaded sulphur produced by the propulsive cylinders is combined with salt extracted from brine which converts it to gypsum in a chemical reaction.

The hulls are coated with silicon as opposed to traditional toxic anti fouling chemicals and the keel is designed to produce low level turbulence, with the consequent bubble streams reducing friction on an already slick surface, thereby aiding fuel consumption, an avowed aim of President Gianluca Grimaldi and his fellow directors. Knud E Hansen Managing Director Finn Wollesen said:

“It’s been a pleasure to cooperate with Grimaldi on the design of these vessels. The collaboration has been very fruitful and enabled us to develop a new generation of vessels that represents real advancement in terms of sustainability and efficiency by using various new technologies.”

Source: Handy Shipping Guide

The Escola Europea signs collaboration agreement with Spediporto-Genoa

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On the 13th of May 2018 the director of the Escola Europea – Intermodal Transport Eduard Rodés travelled to Genoa to sign an agreement of collaboration with the president Dott. Alessandro Pitto of Spediporto-Genoa. The meeting took place alongside the association’s annual general assembly which followed the theme “Meeting our goals: connect, perform, excel”.

The agreement was signed in the framework of the Escola’s new Formati al Porto project. It specifies the incorporation of its proven intermodal training modules in the courses offered by Spediporto over a period of three years.

The educational focus of the Escola is based on research: students attend lectures and practical workshops and work on a case study in groups, which encourages collaborative work and group cohesion as a means to optimize the development of logistics chains.

Founded by 13 entrepreneurs, the Spediporto Association of couriers and carriers of Genoa has established itself as a reality of excellence able to provide qualified and highly professional services. It focuses its activities on the telematic development for the computerization of operational processes; the internationalization of associated members; providing training for the staff of associated companies; and fostering the partnership with the Port of Genoa and other local actors in the transport sector.

For more information on the Escola you can write to info@escolaeuropea.eu. For more information about Spediporto – Genoa, you can visit the association’s website: http://www.spediporto-genova.com/