Periodic Reporting for period 1 - PLATINA4Action (PLATform for the Implementation of the Navigation Action programme for Action)
Reporting period: 2024-01-01 to 2025-06-30
Inland Waterway Transport (IWT) is an efficient mode of transport and has opportunities for growth. It is characterised by low energy consumption and unused capacity of inland waterways. The EU Green Deal therefore aims for modal shift from road to inland waterways. Challenges for IWT are however the reduction of air pollutant emissions and decarbonising the energy usage. Additional challenges are the resilience to climate change impacts (extreme low water conditions) and having sufficient qualified human resources. The EU-funded PLATINA4Action project promotes inland waterway transport (IWT) in Europe. This is done by targeted coordination and support activities aiming on policy measures and on required research and innovation actions. It builds on the network and knowledge developed in the PLATINA3 project, funded under Horizon 2020. PLATINA4Action bridges the gap between current IWT research and future innovation needs. It focuses on deploying green and connected inland waterway transport, evaluates the EU policy for IWT called "NAIADES III" and makes recommendations for a new European policy agenda for IWT. The PLATINA4Action consortium collaborates closely with the European Commission DG MOVE.
It is a platform acting as catalyst, uniting expertise, stakeholders, and research in European IWT. Additionally, the consortium engages with IWT and logistics representatives, river commissions, ports, waterway managers, Member States and research institutes. An Advisory Board was established to review the work and provide input for task execution within the workplan. One of the actions is to coordinate and support the IWT Projects Cooperation Platform. This platform brings together the ongoing and recently closed European RD&I projects working on strengthening the IWT sector to create synergies and boost the impact and visibility. Activities include also the development and demonstration of a digital twin tool. This tool will evaluate the impact of NAIADES III actions and additional policy recommendations. Another specific objective is to develop and validate a European labelling system for green IWT vessels on EU waterways. Specific attention is paid to identifcation and analysing barriers and opportunities for zero-emission and smart technologies and develop pilot actions to deploy selected breakthrough concepts. Another objective is to Develop an RD&I roadmap for technologies and policies, focussing on achieving accelerated zero-emission and smart IWT deployment. This roadmap will guide future actions and investments to reach the policy goals.
It is a platform acting as catalyst, uniting expertise, stakeholders, and research in European IWT. Additionally, the consortium engages with IWT and logistics representatives, river commissions, ports, waterway managers, Member States and research institutes. An Advisory Board was established to review the work and provide input for task execution within the workplan. One of the actions is to coordinate and support the IWT Projects Cooperation Platform. This platform brings together the ongoing and recently closed European RD&I projects working on strengthening the IWT sector to create synergies and boost the impact and visibility. Activities include also the development and demonstration of a digital twin tool. This tool will evaluate the impact of NAIADES III actions and additional policy recommendations. Another specific objective is to develop and validate a European labelling system for green IWT vessels on EU waterways. Specific attention is paid to identifcation and analysing barriers and opportunities for zero-emission and smart technologies and develop pilot actions to deploy selected breakthrough concepts. Another objective is to Develop an RD&I roadmap for technologies and policies, focussing on achieving accelerated zero-emission and smart IWT deployment. This roadmap will guide future actions and investments to reach the policy goals.
- An update was made on the state-of-play of the implementation of the 35 NAIADES III actions, including the update on issues and bottlenecks as reported by members of the NAIADES Implementation Expert Group
- The preparatory work was finished for the development of the Digital Twin tool for the evaluation of policy interventions on macro level
- An update was made of the inventory of the possible methodologies to serve as basis for the labelling system of energy and emission performance of inland vessels on the EU waterways. This update serves as input for further elaboration, evaluation and preparing the roadmap for implementation.
- A stocktaking exercise was completed on initiatives on (near) zero-emission performance of IWT and increasing the digital connectivity. This serves as basis for further elaboration of the economic characteristics (total cost of ownership) as well as barriers and provides candidates for a pilot project to prepare proposals using available financing instruments such as CEF-AFIF and Innovation Fund.
- An overview was made on the available funding and financing instruments for IWT, which was also translated into several national languages to better reach the targeted users
- The IWT Projects Cooperation Platform was set-up based on a Terms of Reference and the website and LinkedIn channel are operational. This platform provides visibility to 44 large RD&I projects with relevance for IWT and supports synergies between the projects
- 3 Technology Transfer Workshops were organised (Gorinchem, Antwerp, Duisburg), providing a programme of presentations on the technical and funding solutions for greening the fleet, targeting the (regional) vessel owners in the Netherlands, Belgium&France and Germany
- 1 high level Stage Event was organised to highlight and discuss the needs of the sector with a wide group of stakeholders on national and EU level to become better positioned to achieve the IWT policy objectives
- The preparatory work was finished for the development of the Digital Twin tool for the evaluation of policy interventions on macro level
- An update was made of the inventory of the possible methodologies to serve as basis for the labelling system of energy and emission performance of inland vessels on the EU waterways. This update serves as input for further elaboration, evaluation and preparing the roadmap for implementation.
- A stocktaking exercise was completed on initiatives on (near) zero-emission performance of IWT and increasing the digital connectivity. This serves as basis for further elaboration of the economic characteristics (total cost of ownership) as well as barriers and provides candidates for a pilot project to prepare proposals using available financing instruments such as CEF-AFIF and Innovation Fund.
- An overview was made on the available funding and financing instruments for IWT, which was also translated into several national languages to better reach the targeted users
- The IWT Projects Cooperation Platform was set-up based on a Terms of Reference and the website and LinkedIn channel are operational. This platform provides visibility to 44 large RD&I projects with relevance for IWT and supports synergies between the projects
- 3 Technology Transfer Workshops were organised (Gorinchem, Antwerp, Duisburg), providing a programme of presentations on the technical and funding solutions for greening the fleet, targeting the (regional) vessel owners in the Netherlands, Belgium&France and Germany
- 1 high level Stage Event was organised to highlight and discuss the needs of the sector with a wide group of stakeholders on national and EU level to become better positioned to achieve the IWT policy objectives
In general the PLATINA4Action is not primarely aimed on generating scientific state of the art results. However, the deliverables can be seen as unique in its kind and very valuable on EU level for the IWT community. Deliverables which can be mentioned are: the update report on the implementation of NAIADES III actions, The Digital Twin for specific analyses of policy on IWT on EU level, the report on methodologies for expressing the energy efficiency and emission performance of inland vessels, the update of available funding and financing instruments for IWT, the report providing the inventory of innovative concepts and initiatives for zero-emission performance of IWT. Also the IWT Projects Cooperation platform is also unique and boosting the visibility of individual projects and the impact of projects.