Meriturvallisuuden ja -liikenteen tutkimuskeskus
Aalto University School of Engineering is looking for enthusiastic candidates for a post-doctoral position in the Safe and Efficient Marine Systems and Experience Research group at the Department of Mechanical Engineering (Marine and Arctic Technology).
More information here
The role of leisure boats in the spreading of alien species in the Baltic Sea Region is largely unknown. The number of leisure boats operating in the Baltic Sea Region is growing, and the risk of potential new introductions is also increasing. It is essential to be aware of this risk and its magnitude in order to address the issue with the most cost-effective measures. As a part of COMPLETE activities, a study will be carried out in summer 2020 together with Kari “Ruffe” Nurmi and his sailing boat, which will be literally used as an experimental vessel.
The aim of the experiments is to test with a single sailing boat, how different kinds of anti-fouling paints common in the market can affect the growth of biofouling organisms during a normal sailing season in the Baltic Sea Region. In addition, some strips in the hull will be left unpainted, to act as reference areas. In this way a comparison can be made, how different antifouling paints work in practice in similar ‘real life’ conditions and verify if there are any alien species present in the potential fouling communities.
During the sailing season, the biofouling growth will be checked with an underwater video camera. The boat will be lifted after the sailing season and samples will be collected from the different strips on the boat hull and the hull will be photographed. From these samples a detailed analysis will be made by the COMPLETE project partner Finnish Environment Institute about the coverage of biofouling, the species composition and especially the presence of alien species. This kind of experimental study is first of its kind in the Baltic Sea Region, and the results will give an insight to the potential transfer of alien species with leisure boats. The results will also be taken into account when giving recommendations from the COMPLETE project on how to mitigate potential risks related to biofouling of leisure boats in the Baltic Sea area.
More information: COMPLETE project.
Finnish Waterway Association organised Winterdays 2020 – seminar in Lappeenranta on Wednesday 29 Jan 2020. The main theme of the seminar was focused on sustainable development and the role of inland waterways in this context. Experts of INFUTURE project were actively involved and several project related presentations were held. It was clearly seen that inland waterways are considered as a potential way of transportation. In the event, almost 90 participants was involved!
On Tuesday 28 Jan, INFUTURE project organised special Round Table discussion, which was targeted to clarify possibility to implement pilot travel to Russian inland waters. As a result, clear list of tasks related to needed conventions and permissions was received.
Material presented during the Round Table discussion could be downloaded here.
COMPLETE Stakeholder Conference ‘Towards solutions for sustainable boating and shipping: better biofouling and ballast water management’ was organized on 4-5 December in Jurmala, Latvia. Over seventy participants from Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Sweden and the HELCOM Secretariat joined the stakeholder conference, representing different stakeholders from policy makers at international, regional, and national level, (e.g. maritime and environmental administrations) as well as local administrations, ports/port authorities, chemical safety authorities, shipping companies, boating associations, marinas, environmental NGOs, and companies providing hull cleaning services. At plenary sessions, stakeholders presented their views on the problems of biofouling and ballast water management, and project partners described how the results of the project can help solve problems.
Conference materials can now be downloaded at the official conference web pages.
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
The realization and social impact of the DigiPort project can be assessed through four themes, the fourth of which is presented here.
Theme 4: Port Data Innovations Based on Open Data
To accelerate digital innovations, the project organized a hackathon event in April 2019 in Mussalo harbor in Kotka. The aim of the event was to bring in open data-driven innovations for the identified challenges of ports by multidisciplinary student teams. The challenges to be solved were shaped by workshops in Kotka and Turku. The event was successfully marketed and 20 students from different educational programs were invited to attend. They represented education in maritime and logistics, service design, data analytics, game design, information technology, and cyber security. In solving the challenges, students were instructed to use various open data sources and data processing tools to create new service concepts. The hackathon event culminated in a pitching competition that rewarded the three best innovations. The judges of the competition were representatives of companies, who also acted as mentors for students. All participating teams were given the opportunity to participate in the *Ship Startup Festival in July 2019 to further develop their idea. The social impact of the theme is the creation of new port innovations for further development.
The realization and social impact of the DigiPort project can be assessed through four themes, the third of which is presented here.
Theme 3: Opening and publishing data
The project developed a policy for port authorities to open and publish data on port infrastructure. Initially, the information needs of the port users were identified. An attempt was then made to find a working method of cooperation to support the opening of data from pilot ports (HaminaKotka and Turku). The management of the port companies was given guidance and recommendations on how to proceed with the mapping exercise. The intention was to progressively open up the data sets with the greatest potential for exploitation. In addition, material already in the public domain at the ports was mapped. Technical information on port infrastructure, i.e. roads, railways, waterways, structures, areas, networks, etc., is already publicly available on the internet. Only publishing as open data gives the port authority control over the accuracy of the information. The description or metadata of the data can influence the correct use of the data.
An Excel-based tool for port data inventory listing was developed. It was triggered by operational problems detected in ports, where data reserves could serve as a raw material for developing solutions. The problems were formulated on the basis of the results of workshops held in Kotka and Turku. The pilot ports made the listings, which served as a basis for reflection on the material to be opened. During the mapping of the data it was noticed that the infrastructure information of the port is scattered and organized in different information systems in the organizations. Information can be found in both paper and digital formats in personal folders and workstations.
Open source requires a publishing platform to make the data and its metadata available to application developers and other users. The materials were stored in a data catalogue located on the database server created for the project, where they can be utilized. The server, software and related peripherals were installed as a thesis at Xamk. The actual deployment was made by Xamk’s ICT management. A domain name, www.datasatama.fi, was opened for the service. This created the world’s first data catalogue focusing on port information. At the end of the project, the data catalogue contains infrastructure data opened by the ports of HaminaKotka and Turku, as well as links to the materials of the Finnish Transport Agency and the Finnish Meteorological Institute. The social impact of the theme is the emergence of a new operating model and the opening up of port infrastructure information for application and software developers. This will enable the development of new digital services for ports that can improve the flow, performance, security and environmental friendliness of ports.
In conjunction with the 15th TRANS Neva Maritime and Shipping Industry Exhibition in St.Peterburg a Seminar on Inland Waterways and Cargo Potential was held September 18th, 2019.
The Seminar was organised in the frames of the “Future Potential of Inland Waterways – INFUTURE project”, which is a CBC Programme 2014-2020 project, funded by the European Union, the Russian Federation and the Republic of Finland.
The programme of the seminar consisted of three sessions: 1) Cargo potential of inland waterways of Republic of Finland at Saimaa and Russian Federation at Volgo-Balt basin; 2) Safe fairways – up-to day technologies for fairway and waterways infrastructure; 3) New IWW vessels for efficient “river-sea” navigation via Saimaa and Volgo-Balt and in shortsea.
The seminar was opened by the Rector of the Admiral Makarov State University of Maritime and Inland Shipping Sergey Olegovich Baryshnikov. He underlined the importance of education of the next generation in maritime and inland shipping.
The Vice-Rector for Science and Research Tatyana Alekseevna Pantina presented the Russian Inland Waterway Strategy 2030. The aim of the improvements of inland navigation in Russian is to increase the cargo volumes, to shift some of the cargo volumes from congested roads and railroads to waterways, which is an environmentally friendly transport mode. Modernization of IWW system is necessary, and in 2018 the President of the Russian Federation Mr Vladimir Putin signed a Statute on 12 national development projects of IWW system.
Tarja Javanainen, Kotka Maritime Research Center, INFUTURE Project Manager, introdouced the project to the international audience, the specialists and stakeholders of IWW system. The project started November 1st, 2018 and ends October 31st, 2021. The project partners are Kotka Maritime Research Association (Lead Partner) FI, Aalto University FI, South-Eastern Finland University of Applied Sciences FI, SeaHow FI, Finnish Waterways FI, Admiral Makarov State University for Maritime and Inland Shipping RU and North-West Russia Logistics and Information Development Centre RU.
Feodor Valerevich Shishlakov, Head of the Administration of Volgo-Balt Basin of Inland Waterways (Volgo-Baltic Administration), presented the Volgo-Balt Basin of Inland Waterways. They are controlling the Volgo-Balt Basin, and one of the main tasks is to take care of the safe and smooth navigation. The Volga-Balt Waterway is an important part of the unified system of deep inland waterways of the European part of Russia. This is a complex of engineering facilities, which includes 4,896 km of inland waterways operated, including 2,969 km with guaranteed dimensions, 11 locks with a pressure of 11 to 18 meters, three water power plants, 25 earth dikes and dams, 12 ferry crossings, 9 bridges, 8 lighthouses on the Ladoga lake, over 4,495 aids to navigation, 243 vessels of service fleet.
Pekka Koskinen, the Finnish Waterways and Anatoly Burkov, the Admiral Makarov State University of Maritime and Inland Shipping presented the current situation of inland waterway systems in Finland and Russia. The modernization of the IWW systems have already been started in both countries. The industry has shown interest in transporting the cargo using waterways. One aim of the INFUTURE project is to examine the cargo potential between Finland and Russia (WP1).
Kari Pohjola, SeaHow and Vladimir Karetnikov, the Admiral Makarov State University of Maritime and Inland Shipping discussed about the fairway techonolgies. One aim of this work package is to study the possibilities to prolong the navigation period and execute a pilot using smart buoys, and also create a smart buoy concept for IWW (WP2).
Professor Pentti Kujala, Aalto University and Professor Marina Lebedeva, the Admiral Makarov State University of Maritime and Inland Shipping introduced ideas on new type of cargo vessel for inland waterways. There are several technical issues which need to be carefully studied for inland waterways have their specific features. The idea is to develop a multipurpose vessel type, to work out a concept and also a ship design (WP3).
It was agreed that the work of development of the IWW system is truly important and the time is right for it. The NEVA Trans will take place next time in 2021. The aim is to have an INFUTURE seminar in the frames of it and present the results of the project.
Text: Heli Koukkula-Teixeira
Inverview of Pekka Koskinen could be seen via webpages of Finnish Waterway Association.
