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The SEAMLESS project, funded under the European Union's Horizon Europe program, commenced in February 2023. During the project's 40-week duration, the aim is to develop and adapt essential components to create a fully automated, economically viable, cost-effective, and resilient waterborne freight feeder loop service for Short Sea Shipping (SSS) and/or Inland Waterways Transport (IWT). TIC4.0 is playing an active role in the project as a partner, providing its expertise in standardisation and data models.
The “Horizon Europe” programme is the latest iteration of the EU Research Framework Programmes, which have been running since 1984. In these, the EU defines specific “calls” or topics of interest for research ranging from health science, physics, etc. to transportation and digitalisation. Goals are defined according to EU policies and targets: for example, later EU programmes have placed strong focus on decarbonisation and digitalisation. European companies and institutions can opt for the funding either alone or forming multinational consortiums to tackle projects with companies from across the Member States. If the project is approved by the European Commission, funding is awarded to them to start working.
The project will integrate autonomous systems to ensure safe, resilient, efficient, and environmentally friendly operations, shifting road transport to inland waterways and enhancing the performance of the TEN-T network. The service will operate 24/7 using a fleet of autonomous cargo shuttles, with human supervision from Remote Operation Centres (ROCs), which will effectively coordinate with automated and autonomous shore-side infrastructure while safely interacting with conventional systems.
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