SEAMLESS aims at developing and adapting missing building blocks and enablers into 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). Autonomous systems will be integrated to ensure safe, resilient, efficient, and environmentally friendly operation to shift road freight movements to hinterland waterways, while enhancing the performance of the TEN-T network. The service will be delivered 24/7 by a fleet of autonomous cargo shuttles, with humans-in-the-loop located in Remote Operation Centres (ROCs), which efficiently cooperate with automated and autonomous shore-side infrastructure and safely interact with conventional systems. The services will rely on a redesigned logistics system enabling seamless freight flows by minimising delays at intermodal nodes. A digital bird’s eye view of the supply chain allows the exploitation of real-time information for planning optimisation and reconfiguration to support resilient logistics, incl. digitalised administrative procedures. The SEAMLESS building blocks will be verified and validated by conducting full-scale demonstrations in selected real-world scenarios. Transferability will be fully demonstrated in selected use cases that cover a wide range of transport applications and geographical regions throughout Europe. Based on a structured methodological framework evaluating sustainability criteria, they will act as guidance for the replication of the project results beyond the project scope and timespan. Novel business models will be thus developed and provide a framework for implementing the SEAMLESS service to minimise investment risk for first movers. Regulatory gaps and challenges related to autonomous vessel operation (e.g. social aspects) will be identified, and recommendations for policy makers to allow the smooth and safe deployment of fully automated services will be provided.

During the last decades, supply chains have become huge networks of heterogeneous organisations involved in the manufacturing and delivery of products to end users. The appearance of IoT is transforming every sector subject to be digitalized. After a period of evaluation of the use of IoT, companies are now moving to complete digitalization of their supply chains. Under this paradigm, iNGENIOUS (Next-GENeration IoT sOlutions for the Universal Supply chain) will exploit some of the most innovative and emerging technologies in line with the standardised trend, contributing to the Next-Generation IoT (NG-IoT) and proposing technical and business enablers to build a complete platform for supply chain management. iNGENIOUS embraces the 5G Infrastructure Association (5G IA) and Alliance for Internet of Things Innovation (AIOTI) vision for empowering smart manufacturing and smart mobility verticals. The iNGENIOUS network layer brings new smart 5G-based IoT functi¬onalities, federated Multi-Access Edge Computing (MEC) nodes and smart orchestration, needed for enabling the projected real-time capable use cases of the supply chain. Security and data management are fully recognized as important features in the project. iNGENIOUS will create a holistic security architecture for next-generation IoT built on neuromorphic sensors with security governed by Artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithms and tile-based hardware architectures based on security by design and isolation by default. In the application layer, iNGENIOUS new AI mechanisms will allow more precise predictions than conventional systems. Project outcomes will be validated into 4 large-scale Proof of Concept demonstration, covering 1 factory, 2 ports, and 1 ship, encompassing 6 uses cases. iNGENIOUS is formed by 21 partners from eight countries, including three telecom vendors and manufacturers, two network operators, four logistics partners, two universities, three research institutes and seven high-tech SMEs.

O-CEI overarching goal is to pilot the imperative of accelerating the uptake and upscaling of innovative Cloud-Edge-IoT solutions, strengthening Europe’s competitiveness and open strategic autonomy by orchestrating cross-domain data sharing, minimising energy footprint, stimulating multi-sided marketplaces, and promoting open standards for virtualisation and interoperability. For doing so, O-CEI will feed with such innovative technologies, and a comprehensive framework, to eight multidimensional real-world pilots framed in key strategic sectors: electricity grid, electromobility, software-defined vehicles, agrifood and agriculture, logistics and urban environments. It will swiftly create and implement innovative solutions across the cloud continuum; and effectively address the needs of existing and emerging individual and cross-sector business value chains. By designing blueprints and providing utilities beyond the SotA, O-CEI will help project stakeholders (and 32 Open Call awardees) to achieve challenging objectives. All pilots are formed by technical and stakeholder actors covering the necessary value chains, having an outstanding cross-domain unifying thread: energy flexibility.

Delays within the maritime supply chain can lead to a “hurry-up-and-wait” syndrome of vessels sailing at a predetermined speed to their destination port to find the terminal or port not ready thus waiting at anchorage in the port area. Updated information about current states are not communicated to all partners in the different port call phases. This makes traffic of vessels waiting, entering, and departing from ports challenging. Communicating terminal or port readiness earlier to vessels allows them to adjust speed and save fuel of up to 23% of the overall voyage including the avoidance of greenhouse gas emissions. The average annual waiting time at anchorage is found to be ca. 9% for wet bulk, ca. 9% for dry bulk, ca. 7% for LPG tankers, ca. 7% for dry breakbulk, ca. 5% for container ships, and ca. 4% for LNG tankers. RoRo-vessels benefit from less traffic-condensed port entries and seaways as well as transparent real-time communication of readiness levels regarding ports and terminals as well as multi-modal hinterland transportation critical for RoRo-port departures. MISSION will develop an interoperable digital real-time-based optimization and decision support tool enabling coordinated port call operations planning and execution in terms of time, fuel consumption, environmental impact, and safety spanning the overall maritime supply chain. Stakeholders benefits from increased transparency and information sharing between shipping companies, terminals, ports, and service providers, enabled to optimize their resource and capacity planning including port’s hinterland modalities in compliance with the Maritime Labor Convention.

Freight transportation is responsible for large share of total GHG emissions in Europe. So far, majority of companies have concentrated on their primary emissions and those caused by their energy use, while indirect emissions from e.g. logistics services have received limited attention. It is obvious that a systemic socio-technical change is vital. The business models for sustainable sourcing and offering multimodal low-emission transport chains are missing. ADMIRAL project aims to have a systemic socio-technical approach. The vision of ADMIRAL is to change the mindset to take the emission level minimization as the main target by providing tools for companies. The main result is the Admiral marketplace, which manages the whole supply chain infrastructure and related emissions. It also works as a channel for developers to distribute innovative and sustainability-focused solutions in EU. The marketplace will be demonstrated and piloted by ADMIRAL partners in 4 pilots: Portugal-Spain, Slovenia-Croatia, Lithuania and Finland. ADMIRAL is focusing on the following objectives: 1) Evolve seamless operation within supply chains; 2) Enable better utilization of current assets and infrastructure to decrease emissions; 3) Embrace systemic change towards sustainability with sustainable sourcing; 4) Develop and pilot solutions that have altogether energy and emission reduction potential. The marketplace will also work as an innovation platform for new services, as software and solution developers have clear guidelines to include the invented services to be available in the platform. The marketplace will improve the value of the B2B logistic platforms. The B2C platforms are dominated by non-EU companies, e.g. Google, but the dominance for B2B platforms is yet to be determined. ADMIRAL will make contributions to the expected outcomes and impacts of the work programme e.g. by aiming to reduce emissions more than 20% and improving transparency and resilience.