Valencia, 23 September 2022. – Fundación Valenciaport has started working on the FOR-FREIGHT – Flexible, multi-modal and robust freight transport project, an initiative co-funded by the Horizon Europe programme that has brought together 18 partners from 7 European countries (Greece, Spain, Romania, Portugal, Cyprus, Belgium and Austria), with the common objective of maximising the utilisation of multimodal freight transport capacity and reducing its average cost through the development of novel solutions and their integration with existing logistics systems. This will enable more efficient management of goods and cargo flows at airports, ports, inland terminals and various logistics nodes, taking into account the needs of all stakeholders and economic, environmental and social aspects.
This project, led by CERTH and in which Fundación Valenciaport participates, has a total budget of 7 million euros and is scheduled to be developed over a period of 40 months, ending in December 2025.
Thanks to FOR-FREIGHT solutions, functionalities such as: door-to-door tracking in real time and monitoring and control of cargo status; decision support systems for the optimisation of resource utilisation based on the Digital Twin concept; increased resilience to large-scale disruptive events and greater information security based on blockchain technology; or greater sustainability through the implementation of a carbon footprint assessment framework and the use of alternative means of transport (metro) will be offered.
To achieve these ambitious goals, the FOR-FREIGHT project engages key T&L stakeholders specialised in different transport modes, such as port and airport authorities, terminal operators, air cargo handlers, rail operators and major transport/shipping operators and brings them together with leading SW and technology developers, research organisations and innovative SMEs.
This collaboration will drive the deployment of three state-of-the-art multimodal test facilities, which will allow real-life testing in operational environments covering heterogeneous multimodal scenarios, namely from seaport to logistics hub and last mile delivery, from seaport to airport (air cargo) and from river port to rail cargo.
Specifically, Fundación Valenciaport participates, together with the Spanish partners COSCO Shipping Lines Spain, DHL and Metro Madrid, in the sea-port use case, which contemplates the sea-port section and extends along the Valencia-Madrid corridor, ending at the last-mile distribution stage using the Madrid metropolitan rail network. In addition, it will coordinate the technological developments and applications that will serve to provide greater interoperability and standardisation to the digital platforms involved in the aforementioned stages.
