Enhancing container barge transport in Europe

This paper analyzes the market developments and identifies the current situation and challenges of container barge transport in deepsea and inland terminals. It was revealed that the major challenges of container IWT include; inefficient handling of barges, poor planning and coordination, lack of flexibility in container barge transport, and low water levels. To solve these challenges, innovative solutions such as mobile terminals, vessel trains, cargo reconstruction, and smart navigation are proposed. The impact of these innovations is currently being examined by using the discrete event simulation (DES) model.