AVATAR in market review CCNR and EC

11 March 2022 - Published by Tom Pauwels

The AVATAR project has been mentioned in the thematic report "An assessment of new market opportunities for inland waterway transport". The report has been written by Central Commission for the Navigation of the Rhine (CCNR), in partnership with the European Commission.

New markets in inland navigation become essential in the framework of a transition towards a more sustainable transport sector and a climate neutral Europe. The project AVATAR is indeed focusing on the new market of city freight distribution with highly autonomous vessels.

Chapter 2 of the report gives an overview of inland waterway transport embedded in urban logistics (with reference to AVATAR on page 57).

Thank you Norbert Kriedel and Athanasia Zarkou for including the project AVATAR in your report, based on the interview with Thomas Brauner, Peter Geirnaert, Senne Van Baelen and Tom Pauwels.

Besides the topic on urban logistics, the market review contains also info about the existing markets of inland waterways (Chapter 1), circular economy and waste transport (Chapter 3) and new inland waterway cargo flows triggered by the energy transition (Chapter 4).

The project AVATAR will also take into account the lessons learned as described in Chapter 5, for example "Other technological developments, in particular automation and
digitalisation, could also play in favour of IWT in urban centres, in particular from a cost perspective (reduced labour costs when sailing during transshipment)."

Obstacles mentioned in the report (and to be taken into account by AVATAR project partners) are:

- Regulation and administrative costs;

- Economic viability;

- Competition for space with other economic sectors in cities;

- Road transport culture in logistics and lack of knowledge about IWT.

The full press release is available here.

The full report can be downloaded here and is also available here.