Overview
Water transport is one of the most efficient and sustainable forms of inland transit. The EU-funded CRISTAL project aims to increase the amount of freight transported via inland waterways by a minimum of 20 % over three years and to improve reliability by 80 %. The project will be conducted at three pilot sites in Italy, Poland and France. There, researchers will focus on creating cooperative solutions which include: technological innovation and digitalisation, advancement towards the physical internet, as well as governance and business models. The project will also seek to make transport corridors more resilient, ensuring that capacity can remain at 50 % even during extreme weather events.
It is the key objective of the project CRISTAL (36 months) to increase the share of freight transport on inland water transport (IWT) by a minimum of 20% and to demonstrate on its three pilot sites (Italy, Poland and France) strategies to improve reliability by 80%.
CRISTAL project will assure IWT capacity at 50% even during extreme weather events. Towards that CRISTAL will co-create, test and implement integrated, cooperative and innovative solutions in its three pilot partners’ areas identified in Italy, France and Poland. The project will include the aspects of technological innovation/development and digitalization; further advancement towards the Physical Internet, governance solution and business models, will be proposed while targeting sustainability and infrastructure resilience requirements.