To reduce the societal and climate impacts of transport, AUTOFLEX will develop solutions for enabling a modal shift from trucks to inland waterway transport, and for electrification of both modes. The key is to acknowledge that electrification of transport has an impact on vessel and vehicle operations and must therefore be tightly integrated with the transport operations by both modes (integration of cargo and energy distribution). The AUTOFLEX scope is therefore to: 1) Develop small autonomous un-crewed zero-emission inland vessels that can operate on underutilised waterways, that are resilient towards low water events, and are competitive. 2) Develop transport system components and an architecture that enables transhipment between modes, urban distribution, and strong competition with road transport. 3) Develop a combined cargo and energy hub (Stow&Charge) for generating and distributing electric energy for the transport system. 4) Develop new business models for operating the transport system, providing services for the transport system, and for offering services based on the transport system (e.g., energy and urban logistics). 5) Validate the ship concepts and transport system through simulation and quantitative analysis, scale model testing and demonstration, and full-scale demonstration. 6) Develop a roadmap for exploitation, recommendations to policy and industry, steps towards realisation, and propose KET interface standards. AUTOFLEX enables zero emission transport (waterborne and road), innovative port infrastructure, climate neutral and climate resilient waterway vessels, integration of shipping into logistic chains, safe and efficient fully automated and connected shipping, and competitive waterborne European industries.

The European maritime transport policy as well as national governments recognizes the importance of the waterborne transport systems as key elements for general and sustainable growth in Europe. In line with the EU Transport White Paper 30% of road freight over 300 km should shift to other modes such as rail or waterborne transport by 2030, and more than 50 % by 2050. So far, this ambition has failed spectacularly. In the period 1995 to 2016 total freight increased with approximately 30%. The share of road transport in intra-EU ton-km increased, whereas the share of short sea shipping (SSS) dropped. Inland had a slight decrease. Waterborne transport has a great potential to reduce road congestion as well as pollution from the transport sector. When used correctly, it is very energy efficient and new ship types can operate with a combination of electric batteries, fuel cells and, when necessary, highly efficient combustion engines, e.g. powered by LNG. The main objective of AEGIS is to develop a new waterborne transport system for Europe that leverages the benefits of ships and barges while overcoming the conventional problems like dependence on terminals, high transhipment costs, low speed and frequency and low automation in information processing. AEGIS intends to use new innovations from the area of connected and automated transport, including smaller and more flexible vessel types, automated cargo handling, autonomous ships, new cargo units and new digital technologies to regain the position that waterborne traditionally had in cargo transport. Ships are most efficient when the cargo holds are full. AEGIS will look for ways to attract new cargo, inbound as outbound, to waterborne transport. This requires new types of services, new business models and better logistics systems.