IHATEC project "RAIN" starts with ceremonial presentation of the funding certificates

At the end of December 2023, the consortium consisting of the Federal Association of Public Inland Ports (BÖB), the Development Centre for Ship Technology and Transport Systems (DST) and the Institute of Shipping Economics and Logistics (ISL) received the funding decision for the IHATEC project "RAIN - Inland Ports' Readiness for Automated Inland Navigation". The official and ceremonial starting signal for the project was given at the kick-off event on 30 January in Berlin with representatives from politics, administration, associations, business and research. Susanne Henckel, State Secretary at the Federal Ministry of Digital and Transport, officially presented the funding certificate.

The waterway system is facing major challenges. Against the backdrop of constantly changing freight flows, increasing sustainability requirements and an already noticeable shortage of skilled labour, the automation of inland waterway transport is seen as a beacon of hope. However, it is still unclear how quickly and to what extent these technological concepts will find their way into practice and what implications this will have for other parts of the waterway system. Against this background, the RAIN project is focussing on inland ports and aims to define development paths for automated inland waterway transport and outline future scenarios and recommendations for action for strategic port development. ISL will place a particular focus on the organisational and economic fields of action.

As part of the federal programme "Innovative Port Technologies", the Federal Ministry for Digital and Transport Affairs (BMDV) is funding the RAIN project with a total of 828,561 euros over the two-year project period.