Freight transport underpins Europe’s economy, yet logistics networks face increasing congestion, inefficiencies, rising operational costs and growing environmental pressures. Limited digitalisation, weak interoperability and fragmented collaboration across modes create delays, reduce competitiveness and hinder progress toward the European Green Deal and the Sustainable and Smart Mobility Strategy. A shift toward automated, data-driven and multimodal operations is essential.
AUTOSUP addresses these challenges by developing an integrated framework to support the adoption of automation in multimodal freight transport, aligned with the Physical Internet vision. A multidisciplinary consortium works with logistics ecosystems to identify automation requirements, analyse enabling technologies and deliver tools to assess their feasibility and impact. Two Living Hubs in Antwerp-Bruges and Trieste act as real-world testing environments across road, rail, maritime, inland waterways and airport connections.
The project provides stakeholders with an open, data-driven Decision Support System (DSS) and Digital Twin (DT) environment to simulate automation scenarios, reduce uncertainties and guide investment planning. AUTOSUP also designs governance and organisational models that promote cross-modal collaboration and lower adoption barriers. Through feasibility studies, impact assessments, stakeholder engagement and policy recommendations, AUTOSUP supports the transition toward efficient, resilient and low-emission logistics networks. Social innovation principles ensure that workforce needs, safety and human-centred factors are embedded throughout the project.
