Grant Awarded for Zero-emissions Inland Shipping Research

The Dutch Research Council (NWO) has awarded a research grant to a consortium aiming to contribute to the transition to emissions-free inland waterway shipping.

The PATH2ZERO (PAving THe way towards Zero-Emission and RObust inland shipping) project, led by Alex Kirichek, will see researchers, companies and social organizations start developing sustainable business models and action perspectives for partners in the inland navigation chain, such as skippers and shippers, to make use of.

As part of the project, a virtual representation of the inland shipping system will be created that can be used for assessing the efficiency of various zero emission strategies. This digital twin will represent the real system with all relevant components and will focus on three main aspects: the individual vessels, the logistic chains and the infrastructure.

Potential interventions will be considered, ranging from the application of new technologies for individual vessels to policy measures for an entire shipping corridor. Future scenarios can be imposed on the digital twin, and their efficiency can be evaluated for the right path toward zero-emissions shipping.

This project was granted within the NWA research program 'Zero-emission inland shipping', initiated by the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management (I&W) and the top sector for logistics (Dinalog).