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Nachrichten, Termine, Experten
Nachrichten, Termine, Experten
idw - Informationsdienst
Wissenschaft
Inland waterway transportation has played a limited role in Europe so far, with a share of around six percent. Together with 15 partners, Fraunhofer researchers are seeking to change this with the EU project CRISTAL. Björn Krämer and Tammo Märtens, both research scientists at the Fraunhofer Institute for Material Flow and Logistics IML, explain in the interview how digital twins and smart sensor technologies can help increase transportation capacities and make logistics processes more reliable.
Why does inland waterway transportation play only a limited role in many European regions, even though it offers a sustainable alternative to road and rail as an energy-efficient and low-emission mode of transportation?
Björn Krämer: In many European regions, inadequate waterway infrastructure jeopardizes reliability. Added to this are water level fluctuations, which make the rivers impassable at times, and a lack of digital control systems. One of the goals of the CRISTAL project (see below) is to ensure that freight can be transported on inland waterways even in poor weather conditions. Our aim is to make inland waterway transportation more attractive and reliable so that companies switch to ships to transport their freight. The aim of the EU research project is to take suitable measures to increase the share of goods transported on inland waterways by up to 20 percent.
In which regions do you want to increase freight transport and make it more attractive?
Tammo Märtens: We are focusing on a number of rivers off the high-capacity Rhine-Main-Danube waterway: the Vistula and Oder in Poland, the Po in Italy, and the Moselle and Seine in France. So far there has been little or no freight traffic on these rivers. Our demonstrators developed in the project will increase efficiency for route and infrastructure planning for these inland waterways, as various tests have shown. The research results can, of course, be transferred to other inland waterways throughout Europe.
What challenges did you face?
Tammo Märtens: Challenges varied depending on the river. While there are information systems for large rivers, they are still lacking for smaller rivers. This leads to a lack of transparency and makes it difficult to navigate these waterways. The Po, for example, is constantly changing and moves a lot of sand, which leads to shifting sandbanks. Predicting navigability for certain river sections therefore proved to be challenging sometimes. In Poland, there is also a lack of real-time information for the Vistula, which is why the river is rarely navigated by ships.
How do you want to exploit smaller rivers for inland navigation?
Tammo Märtens: We want to provide information on water levels and currents, frequency of waterway use and the condition of existing infrastructure, such as bridges or locks, and use a smart traffic management system. Sensors, digital twins and data obtained from other sources of information can help communicate critical developments in water levels or utilization to users early on and find alternative means and routes of transportation. Smart buoys, for example, equipped with sensors and GPS record parameters such as water level, traffic volume, wind speed, current and ice thickness and forward this information to the digital twins to help predict navigability or detect bottlenecks at an early stage.
To what extent do smart sensor technologies and the digital twins mentioned before play a key role in the project and in transportation logistics?
Björn Krämer: Digital twins are an important and crucial part of CRISTAL. In some cases, they constantly collect data, including big data, from sensors installed on locks, bridges and buoys. These virtual images can also predict potential damage to waterway infrastructure, especially for locks. What’s more, they can process the sensor data (for example from the buoy sensors) in real time.
Which digital twins did you develop as part of the project?
Björn Krämer: We developed a total of three digital twins, or DTs. The “lock” DT is a digital twin for locks that is responsible for monitoring lock infrastructure to detect defects at an early stage. Acoustic sensors monitor the sound made by lock gates, record deviations from normal sound behavior and trigger a risk assessment and an alarm if it is possible that the mechanics and hydraulics might be damaged. The defects are visualized in the “lock” DT. What’s more, the lock walls are divided into several quadrants. During routine inspections, each quadrant is scanned using radar technology to detect cavities, micro-cracks or water inclusions behind the lock walls. Radar data with coherent quadrants are transmitted to the digital twin. The lock operator can then access the status of each quadrant, including past scans, in the digital twin.
The “buoy” DT was developed as a digital twin for monitoring the condition of waterways. Like Google Maps, it displays the position of the buoys and all the information collected, such as water depth and temperature, air temperature and the number of barges counted, after receiving the sensor data. The third digital twin, the “water level” DT, is responsible for monitoring and forecasting navigability. To do so, water levels are calculated ten days in advance, taking into account weather data from surrounding regions, and displayed in the virtual image.
So the digital twin is more than just a 3D model?
Tammo Märtens: Yes, it is a dynamic, digital representation of a physical object or system that is constantly being updated by sensors. In transportation logistics, a digital twin can map a logistics area or an entire logistics process. The solutions developed as part of CRISTAL have been successfully tested in the pilot regions. We are therefore confident that they will strengthen logistics processes for inland waterway transportation and harness untapped potential, increasing the reliability of transportation.
Project CRISTAL
Climate resilient and environmentally sustainable transport infrastructure, with a focus on inland waterways
Duration:
September 2022 to December 2025
Project funded by:
European Union; this project is funded under the Horizon Europe call “Climate resilient and environmentally sustainable transport infrastructure, with a focus on inland waterways” | Call ID: HORIZON-CL5-2021-D6-01-09, project ID: 101069838
Project partners:
Fraunhofer IML
Fraunhofer CML
15 partners from Germany, Poland, Belgium, Italy, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Greece, France, the Netherlands and the UK
https://www.fraunhofer.de/en/press/research-news/2025/december-2025/we-want-to-e...
Dashboard of the “water level” DT
Copyright: © Fraunhofer IML
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