Research

MultiRELOAD focusses on the specific role and challenges of inland ports & hubs as multimodal freight nodes in contributing to reaching Europe’s greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction target of at least 55 % by 2030, thereby shifting a substantial part of the 75% of inland freight carried today by road in the EU to inland waterways and to rail, and by increasing operational efficiency, safety and reliability of existing infrastructures (through digitalization) - thereby significantly reducing GHG emissions. MultiRELOAD will develop innovative inter-/multimodal transport solutions linking all relevant modes, using transshipment technology with different intermodal transport units (ITU’s) (incl. transport of bulk cargo using mul-timodal containers), and concepts for an optimized, standardized global goods transport system based on the con-cept of the Physical Internet. In line with the Digital Transport & Logistics Forum’s (DTLF) digitalization strategy , MultiRELOAD transforms intermodal freight nodes into interconnected data platforms to connect actors, physical and digital infrastructure, assets, resources and services on three levels: terminal, node and corridor creating a truly integrated transport and logistics network. MultiRELOAD will develop innovative multimodal freight business models removing legal, regulatory, and contractual barriers to uptake of demonstrated solutions. MultiRELOAD has a particular focus on defining and demonstrating how the business models for the three interconnected freight nodes as part of the Corridor Management System can be expanded to entire TEN-T networks. As part of this work, MultiRELOAD will develop policy rec-ommendations and address the resilience and security of data and management systems, including security against malicious or accidental interventions.

Increasingly larger and more frequent climate-related salvage wood crises are creating new, complex challenges for regional wood supply chain management that can no longer cope with the existing methods currently in use. The overload in planning, design, management, control, and monitoring of wood supply chains endangers this crucial sector for Austria’s climate goals. Through cooperative impulses at local, horizontal, and vertical levels, the project initiates a positive feedback loop, increasing the climate-friendly rail transport of wood and making a significant contribution to a more resilient, sustainable, and competitive wood supply chain. The project derives for the first time concrete strategies and perspectives for a mobility shift in wood transport, enabling operating regional infrastructures and local logistics efficiently and in a climate-friendly manner. The pilot implementation of sustainable and cooperative wood transport strategies for critical forestry problem regions in close cooperation with Waldverband Kärnten and RCA Key Account Management Carinthia enables evidence-based transfer to other rural axis areas and regions with low population density throughout Austria. The consortium consist of BOKU University, University Salzburg, Moving Layers GmbH and RailCargo Austria AG forms an ideal interdisciplinary combination contributing significantly to achieve climate targets 4, 9 and 12 through the implementation of newly developed, cross-organizational cooperation and business models for sustainable freight mobility, joint use and bundling of resources within and along the wood supply chain. The research approach enables a new generation of multimodal wood supply chain models by developing agent-, event- and geographic information system-based large-scale simulation models for training a neural network using machine learning. By exploiting the semantic dimension, the explainable GeoAI model can be transferred to other regions and application contexts, enabling the development of inter-municipal-operator and inter-company cooperation models along regional supply chains. The advanced digital modelling toolbox and, in particular, the web-based mobility-shift demonstrator support local stakeholders in the step-by-step implementation of horizontal and vertical cooperation potentials in wood transport through analyses and visualizations of CO2 savings, rail terminal locations, and resource bottlenecks. The research project represents enormous potential for contingency planning as well as risk and crisis management and significantly improves the efficiency, resilience and sustainability of regional wood supply chain management through the web-based mobility transition demonstrator for quantitative decision support. Qualitative components for the extensive involvement of local stakeholders by means of interviews, surveys, case studies and participative workshops complete the holistic research approach and enable the evaluation of critical disablers and enablers as well as the targeted strategy development for the derivation of concrete business models and implementation steps and actions to force a mobility shift in wood transport as a mitigation and adaptation measure for climate and environmental protection.

The building materials industry faces major challenges in terms of the energy, emissions and resource savings required to achieve the climate targets. Measures to replace fossil fuels in the resource- and energy-intensive construction sector are not enough to achieve comprehensive decarbonisation. The long-term material use of wood in buildings is a building block for achieving climate neutrality in the building sector and it has been shown that timber construction can be a measure to mitigate climate change. An increase from the current 22% to 50% wood (residential) construction (Wood Construction Share) would require an additional wood input into the construction industry of 0.5 million m3 or up to 1 million m3 per year in a scenario with high wood utilisation in order to cover the increasing demand if no measures are taken to extend the service life of buildings and increase recycling. At the same time, the amount of waste wood from deconstruction will increase in the coming decades and therefore represents a growing potential for reuse and recycling from 2050 onwards if various technical, economic and regulatory obstacles can be overcome. Current political strategies and measures in terms of climate protection reinforce the need for innovations along the entire product life cycle and the value chain in the construction sector in order to realise the potential of the recyclability of construction products. Specifically