Enhanced Physical Internet-Compatible Earth-friendly freight Transportation ansWer (ePIcenter)

Acronym of the project: ePIcenter

Head of the Project from TSI: Prof. Irina Yatskiv (Jackiva)

Short description of the project:

ePIcenter will create an interoperable cloud-based ecosystem of user-friendly extensible Artificial Intelligence-based logistics software solutions and supporting methodologies that will enable all players in global trade and international authorities to co-operate with ports, logistics companies and shippers, and to react in an agile way to volatile political and market changes and to major climate shifts impacting traditional freight routes. The overall objective is an innovative collaboratively — driven solution to the increasingly complex strategic and operational planning task that faces logistics operators, shippers and policy makers.

ePIcenter will accelerate progress towards an Enhanced Physical Internet enabled Global-European Network (“ePIGEN”). i.e. efficient integration of the infrastructure or “hard” TEN-T network with global networks, and seamless integration in the “soft” layer: secure international information flows and digitalisation, combined with ethical algorithms for environmentally friendly logistics and seamless freight movements.

ePIcenter has 36 partners with a balanced complementary set of multi-disciplinary competencies: supply chain technology providers, researchers, logistics operators, manufacturers, legal and policy experts and representatives from all main stakeholders.

Industrial involvement — strong participation from the user community: 15 major end-user stakeholders all with pan-European or Global operations, representing shippers, shipping companies, ports/terminals and multimodal logistics providers. Partners DHL, PoA, PAN, CON, STN, ALG, TTI, DGG, DUI, ABI, GVZ, DHT, PKP, PoM and BTE have this role (covering multiple modes, terminal types and shipper/forwarder types).

5 of the participants are SMEs. Most are innovators in shipping, logistics and supply chain solutions and ePIcenter will make a major contribution to their expansion and development — MJC, TIS, ESS, BAL and LGT.

Commercial Developers — a broad range of technology solution providers is represented. Nine leading transport and supply chain technology providers are participating, providing systems for all surface transport modes as well as supply chain planning, optimisation and execution. STN, AKR, MJC2, EIN, ESS, NXT, BAL and LGT have this role.

10 leading universities and educational centres providing researchers from many disciplines (Marine Biology, Engineering, Social Sciences & Humanities, Information Technology & Communications, Economics and Climate & Environment) are included, from four continents. VGTU, TSI, IMG, HEW, BIB, HSL, SAB, VIC, SHN and LAV have this role.

Nine participants will provide technical and legal expertise relating to standards, regulatory constraints and EU-wide and national policy. In addition, these organisations will be able to monitor relevant issues relating to safety, quality management, economic and social impact, inclusion and quality of life. PoA, ALG, HAM, TIS, ESS, BAL, BIB, MSP and BIT will contribute significantly to this work.

International Cooperation is facilitated by the involvement of seven organisations from North America, China and South America (mostly funded from non-EU sources, apart from SAB): SAB, PoM, VIC, LAV, SHN, BTE and BIT.

Main leading and partners from industry and education:

Coordinator of the project — Port of Antwerp (who collaborates with the Port of Montreal and Port of Los Angeles in chainPORT1) and represents a major data visibility and sharing initiative including Global Freight movements involving several modes of transport (ships, barges, trains, trucks).

Volkswagen’s daughter logistics company GVZe (working with DGG), and Continental will trial ePIcenter from the perspective of major global manufacturers, while Duisport and Algeciras will focus on the multimodal transfer zone optimisation from the perspective of a major silk road intermodal terminal and a major transhipment port.

DHL (involving their China Rail/Multimodal team and long-range rail services) in close cooperation with Poland’s rail operator PKP, Chinese logistics operator Beijing Trans Eurasia International, inland multimodal port Duisburg and Panasonic, who will include their cargo flow from Hamburg in the tests.

Stena is a leader in Arctic shipping and will use the outputs of ePIcenter to better understand the economic, environmental and operational aspects. Furthermore, Stena is also a member of the IMO’s GloMEEP initiative, which is developing the Just-in-Time Shipping concept.

Panasonic will use these results to develop a better understanding of the economic and supply chain benefits of Arctic routes. For example, they are shorter and faster than conventional Asia-Europe shipping lanes (potentially reducing fuel use and GHGs), but technically difficult, less reliable and inaccessible in winter months.

The University of Victoria (in Canada) will use the results of ePIcenter as case studies to explore the application of management measures to ships passing through an area of known marine mammal importance/high risk, with the ultimate goal of reducing the number of whale strikes by cargo ships, and the impact of underwater noise on cetacean movements.

Transport and Telecommunication Institute (TSI) will have a major role in the following tasks:

• 2 (Freight Network Configuration Impact Comparator)
• 2 (Soft Network Architecture & Physical Internet Models)
• 3 (Exploiting Potential of Modularisation, Digitalisation & AI)
• 3 (Environment- & Wildlife-Friendly Navigation Algorithms)
• 3 (ePI-Node Demonstrator — the «Node of the Future»)

TSI’s expertise in simulation and modelling of transport networks will be valuable for many areas of ePIcenter, including requirements, vision, understanding of TEN-T flows and analysis of demonstrator results and validation of conclusions. TSI’s expertise in passenger transport will also be very useful in terms of transfer of knowledge and relevant innovative ideas.

The first kick-off meeting is scheduled on 17^th June 2020 and will become a virtual meeting.

Total budget of the project: EUR 6 848 575,00