Exploitable results A Revolutionary Concept for Intermodal Transport; IPSI In order to succeed in transferring transport of goods in Europe from land to sea (Short Sea Shipping or Inland Navigation), the complete logistic chain using waterborne transport as a major component, must be competitive. Since cargo must be moved between ship/barge and land transport systems at least twice, the efficiency of the port/ship interface in the intermodal context of a door-to-door logistic chain is of vital importance. IPSI terminal concept has been shown to have capabilities that may make it an efficient hub in intermodal chains, particularly when served with IPSI vessels. Furthermore, the cost of vessel and operation combined with the performance of the cargo handling equipment compared to conventional container feedering, clearly makes the IPSI concept a commercially viable alternative for this type of operation. If the IPSI concept was attempted for container feedering, we could achieve the following benefits also for container shipping: - The expensive equipment in ports like Gioa Tauro and Rotterdam could be dedicated to handle the cargo from large, expensive intercontinental container ships. A cheaper and more efficient technology could transfer cargo onto a RoRo vessel for feedering, either directly or via a storage area. - By using IPSI technology for container feedering, we had created an open solution. By open we mean a solution that could combine the feedering of intercontinental containers with intra-European transport. Such an integration would open up great possibilities for new waterborne transport services in Europe, attracting cargo form the road. The handicap of the IPSI is essentially the use of cassettes for handling containers and other unitized cargo during loading and unloading. If generally used, management of standard cassettes will be required. This, however, is similar to managing containers, and should not discourage the real life testing and evaluation of the IPSI concept. Searching for OpenAIRE data... There was an error trying to search data from OpenAIRE No results available
