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Aim of Creating
Creating aims at stimulating waterborne transport in an economical way, by giving new impulses to inland navigation. Whereas the hinterland transport of maritime cargo such as maritime containers already takes place via inland waterways to a large extent, continental cargo is almost completely transported by road.
Why Creating
Looking at the ever increasing transport flows, road congestions and the exhaust of environmentally unwanted gases and particles, the possibilities of waterborne transport should be explored and developed to a much higher extent. Also the ever increasing fuel costs should be mentioned in this respect: waterborne transport is far less fuel consuming, thus increasing the commercial need for modal shift.
Team of Creating
The Creating Team comprises 27 partners from 9 countries and deals with the Rhine and Danube basin, the North?South connection from the Netherlands to France, and the East?West canals situated in a.o. Germany and Poland. The team includes research institutes, shipyards and relevant branch organizations (viz. shippers, inland navigation) and maintains strong relations with the authorities.
Approach of Creating: Logistics
Creating aims at integrating chain logistics with modern technology in the field of inland navigation. The main project goal is to integrate the ship in existing transport chains. The first challenge is to track down such chains and to integrate ships therein over the larger part of the transport distances in an economically feasible way.
Once these examples are found and parties involved are really interested in the modal shift concepts for reasons of economics, environment and safety, then the technical part of the project starts, leading to the design of new inland ships.
Approach of Creating: Technology
The ships to be designed must be state of the art in terms of economics, safety and environment. The ship owner has to obtain a ship that fulfils the highest requirements regarding.
- Ship hydrodynamics (decreasing the hull resistance of the ship and optimizing both propulsion and manoeuvrability)
- Engines (to be as efficient and clean as possible) and
- Safety (reducing the risks involved in transport)
Assessment of the results
Once the ships are designed, an overall assessment will be carried out in order to compare the new transport chain to the original one. In this assessment all aspects mentioned before will be of great importance. The comparison will contribute to the acceptance of inland navigation as a reliable, clean, efficient and cost effective means of transport.
Dissemination of results
The results of Creating will be widely spread all over Europe, especially in the 9 countries involved
