CO2REOPT (Coordination of Core European Supply Chains using Optimization)

Efficient and environmentally friendly transports are of utmost importance for Europe. The CO2REOPT project aims at optimizing core supply chains of high importance by developing decision support systems for the coordination and synchronization of transports from a supply chain perspective.

The consortium includes industrial and academic partners from Sweden (SICS, LKAB and TRV), Norway (SINTEF and JBV) and the Netherlands (EUR, SAMSKIP and SP). The proposed budget is 1 063 000 € in total, of which 790 000 € is in grants, 243 000 € is in kind, and 30 000 € is in cash contribution. The project is planned to start mid-2016 with a duration of two years. The transports in multimodal transport corridors typically involve several transport operators, each having their own agenda and objectives. Operators optimize their own subsystem, while it is of utmost importance to optimize the whole transport corridor. Multimodal supply chains often follow fixed timetables for the individual transports in the chain. This approach results in e.g. waiting for the next scheduled transport, leading to longer transportation times and storage costs. Further, upstream delays and disruptions, which are accumulated in the logistics chain, aggravate the problems and lead to further delays and secondary effects, such as low punctuality. Approaches to remedy the situation
are to generate robust timetables capable to accommodate uncertainties (to a given extent), to support dynamic replanning of timetables, and also to have active disruption management. In CO2REOPT, the robust and dynamic replanning of timetables, optimal disruption management, and design of cross-border synchromodal transport chains, will be studied from a supply chain perspective.

The objective is to 1) adapt timetables to the supply prediction at the origin, the demand at the destinations, and the hub conditions and storage predictions underway, while taking fleet availability and transport leg balance in consideration, and to 2) design optimal cross-border synchromodal transport services. For this purpose, two freight corridors will be considered: 1) the main European iron ore corridor, by railway from Kiruna and Narvik, by ship from Narvik to Rotterdam, and again by rail from Rotterdam to central Europe, and 2) the Samskip services between Norway, Sweden, and various locations in Europe via the ports of Rotterdam and Duisburg. For the first one, the synchronization of timetables and (re)planning of dispatching need to be coordinated to make them effective from a supply chain perspective. For the second one, the economic optimization of synchromodal transport services is central. The two cases are interconnected as a synchromodal service can directly benefit from improved disruption management. The potential impact is both to decrease dependency on road transports, to increase punctuality on the important iron ore corridor (+15%), and to support the development of new synchromodal transport services. The decreased dependency on road transports will lead to improved sustainability of the transport chains.