Overview
The growth of goods transport in The Netherlands causes a high pressure on the infrastructure. Traffic management and other technological solution have their limits and cannot solve the problems alone. Therefore, alternatives with optimal use of existing capacity are needed. The only transport mode that does not have capacity problems is waterborne transport.
Central objective is the development and realisation of a multimodal, country-wide, intelligent transport network via a combination of road and waterborne transport, for the consolidated transport of groups of suppliers with palletized cargo between production bases, transhipment areas and distribution centres of retailers.
The potential users of the project are firstly sought in the food sector. During phase 1 of the Distri-ship project they have set the requirements for the network, in terms of responsiveness, reliability, speed and costs. After a successful project result in the food sector, other markets can be approached. The Distri-ship phase 2 project will firstly test a set of technical and logistic aspects of the new network in a pilot phase. Secondly the Distri-ship phase 2 project will deliver a business plan with all necessary elements for a successful handing-over to a market party, who will become responsible for the exploitation of the Distri-ship network.
Six project parts have been defined in order to gain the necessary knowledge for a successful pilot and business plan:
- programme management,
- economics,
- logistics planning and control,
- technical aspects,
- network development,
- pilot.