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Transport time and cost are decisive factors for shippers when they choose a mode for their transport. For inland waterway transport in particular, these aspects are more uncertain and less easy to generalize than for road and rail. This is due to the highly variable waterway conditions on free-flowing rivers and due to the large variety of inland ships. Today´s transport models, however, do not take these factors into account. This paper shows that dynamic fairway conditions, the ship’s amount of propulsion power, and the captain’s behaviour have a substantial impact on the attainable speed and fuel consumption of inland ships. This in turn has a significant impact on attainable sailing schedules and transportation cost, as we demonstrate through a case study for ships sailing on the Rhine-Danube corridor. We, therefore, conclude that there is a clear potential to improve the representation of inland waterway transport in freight models by modelling the effects of actual ship characteristics and waterway conditions at the micro-level.

The project MoVe IT! (www.moveit-fp7.eu), funded by the Seventh Framework Programme of the European Union, was focussed on modernisation of inland waterway vessels by retrofitting. In order to stimulate an implementation of the results by the industry, visualization of the positive impacts was realised by a set of vivid demonstrators. In this paper, the demonstrations by simulators for a single screw motor cargo vessel of the type Johann Welker are described.The motion simulations are carried out by a custom made (for inland vessels developed) computer program, which use common naval architect force calculation algorithms and a new approximation theory for added masses.The simulator demonstrations comprise descriptions and visualisations of ship lengthening, application of different rudder and a new propulsion device. Five different cases are examined, the original vessel and four retrofit options.First retrofit variant is the lengthened vessel with original rudder and propeller. Other two analysis are performed changing only the rudder system. In fourth simulator demonstration the original propeller is changed to a pump propeller (a novel propulsion device).The environment are in the simulator demonstrations: constant draught of the vessel, and calm, infinite deep waterway.As results of simulator demonstrations the effects on fuel consumption and manoeuvrability are discussed in the paper.

The project MoVe IT! (www.moveit-fp7.eu), funded by the Seventh Framework Programme of the European Union, aims at a modernisation of inland waterway vessels with focus on retrofitting of existing vessels and technology transfer from new buildings and other transport modes. The topics of the project refer to the improvement of energy efficiency and environmental behaviour of inland waterway vessels, as well as the implementation of alternative energy sources to gasoil. Environmental assessment of various retrofit options is one major objective of the MoVe IT! project. The analysis is carried out for five vessels, comprising a container vessel, three pushers and a motor cargo vessel being operated together with a lighter. In this paper only the analysis of this last vessel is presented. The effects of the different retrofit solutions to be applied in this vessel are taken into account by the resulting reduction of the fuel consumption or directly the respective emissions in per cent. To obtain a wider picture, the emissions referred to tkm are compared with the ones of road transport carried out with trucks complying with emissions standards EURO III up to Euro VI, as well as the East European emission standard (EE).

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