TRiLOGy aims to demonstrate the potential of autonomous and electric vessels for increasing the safety, efficiency and sustainability of transportation and logistics in urban waterways. In order to reach this goal, a joint investigation is needed on fleet management and autonomous sailing. TRiLOGy involves collaborations with national and international academic researchers as well as industrial partners. Two case studies are considered: i) city logistics for construction material transportation; ii) mobility on demand with water-taxis. The proposed methodologies will be tested for the two case studies through realistic simulations and real-life experiments.

The aim of the envisioned research is to develop a framework for self-organization of an automated vehicular system on all operational levels, ranging from the vehicle level up to and including the logistical level. Here, the underlying paradigm is that vehicles are interconnected through a vehicular ad hoc wireless network (VANET), allowing them to optimize their collective behavior by means of a distributed implementation of control algorithms. Consequently, self-organization of an interconnected system, in this particular application consisting of road vehicles, is key to the envisioned project. Since the main objective is to efficiently and safely transport goods or people, a multi-layered consensus control (MLCC) framework must be designed to create a desired emergent behavior of the system as a whole, incorporating both analysis and synthesis. The application area involves automated vehicles on public roads as well as automatic guided vehicles (AGV’s) in closed areas. Both types of applications are characterized by state transitions that occur, e.g., when switching between platooning, merging of a vehicle into a platoon, giving right of way, or avoiding an obstacle. In particular for application to autonomous vehicles on public roads, resilience of the system is crucial due to the presence of manually driven vehicles, acting as an external disturbance to the system. In addition, system robustness also plays an important role for AGV’s to cope with malfunctioning vehicles or other system failures.

READINESS will be the design of scalable, modular and fault tolerant control architectures with emphasis on autonomous navigation systems, considering the ship as a large network of interconnected subsystems. To handle the energy transition, the second research pillar will be the creation of optimisation algorithms for ship topology that make a trade-off between life cycle costs and the uncertain magnitude of ship modifications. The third pillar will be the robust design of routing methods for pipes, ducts and cables for handling efficiently any transition given the networked ship structure. Progress and updates can be followed via https://www.ship-readiness.nl/

European seaports must achieve net zero emissions by 2050 and a 55% reduction by 2030 as mandated by the European Green Deal. With up to 80% of port emissions stemming from the port call process, new methods are urgently needed for coordinated decision-making and net-zero strategies. Current methods lack integrated planning, data sharing, and do not address uncertainties from shore power and new fuels. We will develop AI methods to manage these complexities and uncertainties, aiming to decarbonize the port call process. This will be demonstrated in Rotterdam and Moerdijk, making the Netherlands a global leader in sustainable port operations.

Synchromodality provides a powerful concept for enhancing the efficiency of freight transportation chains where two or more transportation modes are involved. However, an important factor that complicates the operation of synchromodal chains is the omnipresence of uncertainty in many factors, like weather, traffic congestion, delays or disruptions in any of the (inter-)modal networks, driver behavior, and quality of roads. In this project, the aim is to develop methods and models for exploiting the great potential for synchromodality, addressing the question "what" to transport, "how" and "when". The bundling of shipments so as to balance loads on a corridor in both directions can namely lead to a transition from a chaotic state to streamlined state with more efficiency and at less cost. To this end, we analyze and compare different approaches, including centralized and distributed stochastic assignment problems, and data intensity analysis and their resilience under uncertainty. We evaluate our models in a real-life use case in a Field Lab setting.