CargoXpress – Innovative cargo vessel for sustainable marine transport
The European Commission has put in effort and action to move a sustainable part of the growing transportation on road traffic towards the Motorways of the Sea (MoS).
Objectives
CargoXpress is developing a new generation of competitive cargo vessel for maritime. By using innovative concepts and technologies; in order to support the greening of surface transport and prepare for fast and efficient modal shift in the ports, it offers the necessary capacity and low fuel consumption as well as alternative energy sources.
The new cargo vessel will be designed to enter small and medium sized ports which lack proper infrastructure logistics such as ship-to-shore cranes. It will be defined to such a detail that a full scale vessel can be built serving as an experimental prototype without further investigation.
The idea is not only to move road traffic to the MoS, but also to redistribute the heavy traffic from the large ports by providing a feasible vessel for medium and small ports.
Technology
- Develop new structural elements, use light weight materials, facilitate high-tech productions methods
- Solutions to cut down energy consumption
- Modular standardized equipment, simplified serial concept
- Know-how from Germany, Greece, Norway, Spain and Sweden
Economy
- Make MoS competitive to road traffic
- Reduce time and costs in the whole transport chain
- Create jobs and revitalize ports
- Produce LCA to support high-tech energy saving solutions
Environment
- Reduce water and air emission, EU25 energy consumption, and CO2 emissions
- Cut port idle time and energy waste
- Use of wind propulsion and sun cells
- Relief infrastructure problems for road and air transport