Overview
This project is about supporting EU's Freight Transport Logistics Action Plan on Green Corridors Issues. It is a Coordinated Action supported by DG-TREN.
The purpose of the SUPERGREEN project is to promote the development of European freight logistics in an environmentally friendly manner. Environmental factors play an increasing role in all transport modes, and holistic approaches are needed to identify 'win-win' solutions. SUPERGREEN will evaluate a series of green corridors covering some representative regions and main transport routes throughout Europe.
The selected corridors will be benchmarked based on parameters and key performance indicators covering all aspects related to transport operations and infrastructure. Environmental issues and emissions, external-, infrastructure- and internal costs will be covered to get an overall and realistic picture. Based on this benchmarking, areas and candidates for improvement will be identified (i.e. bottlenecks). The next step will be to evaluate how green technologies may support improving the identified bottlenecks.
Among the green technologies considered may be novel propulsion systems, alternative fuels, cargo handling technologies, new terminal technologies or novel concepts relevant for the multi modal green corridors. The benchmarking issue is an iterative process. Next, a similar process needs to be accomplished taking into consideration smarter utilisation of available information in the multi modal chain (ICT-flows). An analysis will be made on how this information can be utilised to achieve greener logistics along the green corridors: e.g. e-freight, Supply Chain Management (SCM), smarter planning, scheduling and tracking & tracing.
Based on these iterative benchmarks and evaluations, new R&D within specific topics may be needed to improve the identified bottlenecks. Recommendations for future calls for R&D proposals will be made. Last but not least, the project will review and assess the implications of alternative policy measures for green corridors, both at the local and the European level.
Funding
Results
Benchmarking Green Corridors
The benchmarking process of green corridors evaluated six corridors (Brenner, Cloverleaf, Nureyev, Strauss, Mare Nostrum and Silk Way) based on a selection of KPIs (CO2, SOx, relative transport costs, transport time, frequency and reliability) and the changes in the operational and regulatory framework. The results of the KPIs were presented in forms of ranges making a distinction for each mode of transport.
Identifying bottlenecks
The project identified major bottlenecks for six categories:
- Operational,such as railway interoperability problems, border crossings, lack of IWT harmonised procedures , maritime administrative processes and safety and security
- Related to ICT and transportation technology, such as lack of harmonised ICT systems and data exchange, tedious procedures for customs clearance, outdated IW fleet and bottlenecks in RIS (River Information System)
- Infrastructural, such as congestion, infrastructure limitations, limited connections, terminals capabilities etc.
- Related to policies, legislations and regulations,such as lack of harmonisation of national regulations, tedious border crossing procedures, inland vessel certification and complex rules on carriage of dangerous goods by sea
- Other types such as geographical barriers, ice conditions and shortage of professional expertise and
- Greening technologies.
Together with the bottlenecks, the project presented possible mitigating actions, gap analysis results between the desired and current situation and the impact of the potential greening action.
Identifying good practices
While several good practices were identified to improve sustainability in all corridors and in all transport modes, the main problems were the lack of harmonisation and co-operation. The most favourable areas for improving sustainability were: Improvement of green supply chain design and management, harmonisation and development of policies and regulations, development and harmonisation of transport infrastructure and transport technology, harmonisation and development of ICT solutions and transport documents, improvement of transparency of information and increase of cooperation in supply chains and transport systems and ensuring supply of good quality labour.
Main recommendations
The major measures to support the greening of corridors w
Policy implications
The project indicated that ICT policies could radically enhance the infrastructure and networks interoperability and improve infrastructure utilisation and service quality. More specifically the project made the following suggestions:
- Enhance the development of common EU transports areas with compatible characteristics (similarly to EU directives 2010/40 and 2010/65).
- Enhance and support efforts for harmonisation of EU transport attributes in terms of charging, regulations, systems, equipment, and procedures in all means of transport.
- Support actions aiming to develop trans-European systems or to solve compatibility issues in the EU transport industry.
- Support actions to reassess and redesign transport regulations in EU countries. ICTs are designed based to the regulatory environment and different needs lead to disintegrated systems. The aim is to further harmonise the EU transport system and develop common transport areas.
- Support industry benchmarking in transport solutions and promote and support good practices and ICT systems in transport services.
The project also developed a list of recommendations to the European Commission, including notes on evaluation tools (financing, emissions calculators, other forms of review), funding priorities, policy development (e.g. fuel consumption standards for trucks or a common standard for modular logistics units), recommendations of governance of the freight corridors.
Other results
Sustainable green technologies and Innovation
More than 200 candidate green technologies were identified, analysed and classified, while 60 of them were indicated aas SUPERGREEN material. The results showed that:
- Compared to a baseline road network performance, an improvement up to 8% in operating costs and 26% in CO2 emissions can be achieved.
- For maritime transport cases, the measures could bring up to 20% CO2 emission reduction; 38% improvement on average speed, 73% reduction of SOx
- For rail, the energy settlement systems can save up to 16% and 30% of energy
Strategy targets
An efficient and integrated mobility system: A Single European Transport Area
Innovating for the future: Promoting more sustainable development and European Transport Research and Innovation Policy