The CRISTAL project focuses on the development of inland waterway transport (IWT) and its infrastructure on smaller and commercially undeveloped feedwater routes. They are key to expanding Europe’s waterway system.
The crucial aim of the project is to create an innovative technology for monitoring and digitization of transport chains, indicating the direction of further development of business and management models that include river transport in multimodal chains.
The project consists of three pilot sites (Poland, Italy and France) which will initiate a step change from the current system, concerning the inland water infrastructures asset management, towards the ultimate vision of the Physical Internet linked to the sustainability and resilience concepts; by synchronizing intermodal services between modes and shippers (referred to as “Synchromodality”), aligning equipment and services on corridors and hubs as well as integrating these into networks. These aspects will tackle the sustainability and infrastructure resilience requirements.