INFUTURE Steering Group and Working Group meetings were held in St. Peterburg at the Admiral Makarov State University of Maritime and Inland Shipping October 15-16th.
The Chairman of the Steering Group, Pekka Koskinen, as opening the meeting noted that the project has been on-going for a year now and it is time to have a look on the results so far.
All 4 work packages presented the outcomes so far including very comprehensive academic studies and practical analyses.
1) Transshipment Hub Development – Cargo potential from both sides, Finnish and Russian, has been studied and evaluated
2) Inland Waterways Fairway Technologies – the water areas have been studied and analyzed. The aim is to conduct a pilot on the Neva river.
3) Inland Waterway Vessel Concept – based on the information from the WP1 a new vessel type concept for multipurpose vessel has been studied. The aim is the have a design of this vessel by the end of the project.
4) Dissemination and Stakeholder Engagement – A lot of work has been done within the WP1-3 and now we have good material for dissemination and having round tables, like within the NEVA Trans.
The next steps on each work packages were also agreed during these two meetings.
The project members visited the Museum of the Admiral Makarov State University of Maritime and Inland Shipping, which tells about the history of academic maritime education.
Text: Heli Koukkula-Teixeira
