ReNEW
Resilience-centric Smart, Green,
Networked EU Inland Waterways
Creating new solutions for climate-neutral and climate-resilient IWT.
Vision.
To develop low-emission solutions by 2030 and address the significant impact of climate change on inland waterway transport (IWT) operations, the goal is to create and test innovative approaches for both climate-neutral and climate-resilient IWT.
While improving infrastructure resilience is critical, it is also important to recognise that building a climate-resilient IWT system needs solutions which encompass the complete IWT framework that involves the interdependence of infrastructure robustness and the dependability, maintainability, and fault tolerance of barges/fleets.
These efforts align with industry priorities, including sustainable infrastructure adaptation, environmental compatibility, fleet competitiveness, digitalization, multimodal integration, and workforce development.
The challenge.
Historically, the waterborne sector has exhibited a passive and conservative posture towards innovation, as well as a reluctance to digitalize “best practices”. In IWT this is principally due to conservative “ways of operating” by barge skippers/owners, resulting in highly aging, inefficient fleet with unreliable and polluting operations.
Progress in the adoption of innovation by the IWT sector, and achieving the associated resilience and decarbonisation goals, is hampered not by technological limits, but rather by systemic problems influencing the European IWT digital and energy transformation.
Energy Waste
Inefficient Fleets
Pollution
Approach & solutions.
To address these challenges, it is necessary to incentivise innovations across the different dimensions outlined above and provide robust validation of how and where innovation can support the transition to a sustainable, resilient and high-efficiency IWT system.
More specifically, ReNEW will deliver:
- A decision-support framework including Resilience and Sustainability Quantification supporting the strategic planning and operational optimisation of Green Resilient IWT (GRIWT).
- Innovative infrastructure resilience and sustainability solutions targeting rapid deployment after disruptive events to create new provisional links to other transport modes and building on autonomy developments and maturing green energy options.
- A GRIWT Dataspace and Digital Twin (DT) providing primarily data sharing between infrastructure monitoring, RIS and traffic management and emergency systems and climate solutions.
- Four Living Labs (LLs) designed to provide exemplars from
a) LLs focusing on integrated IW and hinterland infrastructure [Gent-urban, Douro-corridor, Netherlands–national/EU network perspectives] and
b) a LL addressing specifically inland waterway resilience. - The ReNEW Outreach and Upscale program designed to maximise impact pathways spearheaded by the European Inland Waterways Transport (IWT) platform and industry clusters, as well as leading industry innovators.
Living Labs
Four LLs, including Ghent and Douro waterways
ReNEW is driven by a demonstrative core, composed by 4 real-life Living Labs, focused on complementary aspects of Green Resilient Inland Waterway Transport, ensuring the required interrelations towards achieving innovation synergies and creating a comprehensive contextual approach towards a resilient, sustainable and thriving inland waterways transport future.
Our role.
Apart from driving the technical coordination, Inlecom Innovation also leads the Living Labs operations, as well as the Innovation activities including the IP management and the patent filling for the project.
This project has received funding from the Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under GA 101069682 . Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or European Commission. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.
