The goal of this large-scale Horizon Europe project is to improve the resilience of inland waterways (IWW) to weather conditions and to estimate the conditions endangering the navigability; thus, increasing the competitiveness of river freight transport.
21 partners from 9 countries participate in the project: universities and research institutes, meteorological institutes, companies dealing with river shipping, companies developing info-communication systems, ports and other operators and service providers related to the transport of goods in IWW (e.g., railways). The Hungarian participants are:
- BME, Department of Transport Technology and Economics, Transport Systems and Mobility Services Research Group,
- Freeport of Budapest Logistics Ltd. (port operator in Csepel),
- MÁV Hungarian Railways (railway infrastructure operator),
- RSOE National Association of Radio Emergency and Infocommunication (operation and development of water information systems).
The share of water freight transport is marginal in Hungary: 1-2%. The reasons of this fact lie – among others – in the inflexibility and high uncertainty of IWW. The main task of the Hungarian partners is to test the methods and systems developed during the project in the Freeport of Budapest as a case study location (besides ports located in Belgium and Romania) with particular attention to the specialties and influence of connected railway infrastructure and services. The further aim is to develop the available water information systems and services in Hungary to improve the competitiveness of shipping on the Danube.
The researchers of the BME Transport Systems and Mobility Services Research Group participate also in several other tasks. As a leader, they coordinate the tasks regarding analysis of end-user needs and determination of the IWW Resilience Framework. Besides the experienced researchers of the research group (Csaba Csiszár, Bálint Csonka, Dávid Földes), young Hungarian and international MSc (Patrik Hegyi) and PhD (Dahlen Silva, Ahmed Jaber) students also play an important role during the work.