The IW-NET Living Labs investigate and test digital solutions supporting IWT infrastructure, barge operators, and city transport.
The objective of one of IW-NET Living Labs is to make waterways the preferred option for the transportation of goods into dense urban areas, like Antwerp-Brussels-Courtrai-Lille-Tournai-Valenciennes. To achieve this goal advanced digitalization technologies in the representative corridor are applied and tested. They focus on investigating sustainable cooperation between inland waterways transport services, suppliers, and consumers. In the frame of this Living Lab a revenue management platform is designed and tested. It is based on smart contracting hierarchical decision making for service planning and demand routing. This Living Lab showcases the IWT as a great modal shift enabler.
From 25 to 30 November 2022, this Living Lab started the first stage of the field tests. The first multi-stop, multi-client and multi-product voyage took place between Flanders and Wallonia (BE). It was organised in partnership with two waterway shuttle programmes: Via Palletto (Flanders) and Navigation à Petit Gabarit (Wallonia).
A vessel specially designed for the transport and handling of packaged goods like pallets or big bags and equipped with an onboard crane, transported construction materials on pallets.
During this first test, a beta version of the user interface was already available and shown. It has a user-friendly overview of the nature and transportation progress of shipping goods.
This voyage made it possible to test the first technical building blocks developed within the “WP1: Open IWT Digitalization Infrastructure and Services for IWT Integration in Multimodal Transport and Urban Logistics ”.
The next stages of testing will take place in the coming weeks with the further development of technical building blocks.
