Abstract

This document provides the AEOLIX impact assessment of living labs at the operational level. It is based on three main impacts namely business, environment, and socio-economic impacts. The three impacts are sub-divided further into sub-categories. The report collects data from twelve living labs involved in with AEOLIX. One of the main goals of AEOLIX was to reduce the costs for various logistics activities as implemented in twelve living labs. The expected benefits in the business area are from reducing the consumption of different resources, reducing the time used for various activities, and from increasing the productivity in certain areas. The economic or business benefits came along two dimensions: (i) in terms of time and (ii) in terms of money. In terms of time, AEOLIX facilitated reducing the time spent on various activities at the companies. In terms of money, AEOLIX helped to save the costs of specific logistics activities within the living lab. For the environmental aspect an overall value of 20% was set as target value for reduction in CO2 emission using AEOLIX. Only one of all living labs reached this target value, but there was anyhow a reduction found in all living labs. AEOLIX and its functions have also helped in reducing noise pollution at some of the living labs. In some cases, there was quite a considerable reduction. For the socio-economic aspects the job creation, SME empowerment, and the improved quality of life are addressed. This study has explored the impact of AEOLIX on job creation in terms of drivers’ and operators’ jobs. Since the AEOLIX implementation is still in its initial phases, respondents were unable to estimate how many jobs (drivers and/or operators) were created in the long run. SME Empowerment was measured as the increase in SMEs’ market share and the increase in direct collaboration between SMEs and large organizations. The results were meager both with regard to the market share and the extent of collaboration. The improved quality of life is measured in the way AEOLIX puts more focus on work, the less stress at work and a positive attitude towards people using it. The results reflect that AEOLIX has greatly helped employees to put more focus on work and to reduce stress levels. Managers consider this as a positive side of the return on investment (ROI) as the business processes are improved. AEOLIX impact on various socio-economic aspects is in principle positive but as this process is very slow to emerge it takes time to observe any changes in social aspects. Acceptance and trust on AEOLIX can be captured as a majority of the evaluation managers of the living labs found the AEOLIX functions (dashboard, connectivity engine and toolkit) useful to a great extent. The willingness to continue using AEOLIX functions and their usefulness are directly related to each other. This means that the more useful a function is, the more users are willing to continue using it. The AEOLIX platform, through various services and functions, has a positive impact on society in general and on workers in particular. Although this impact cannot be evaluated financially for the first year of the AEOLIX implementation, numerous studies show that a more satisfying and less stressful job, together with a more welcoming and stimulating environment, have an important economic impact in the long-term period. Therefore, the fact that AEOLIX has a positive impact on society will also prove to be an economic benefit for the different companies.

Abstract

Inland Waterway Transport (IWT) has the potential of moving significant amounts of cargo across the European continent. Similar to the Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) initiative in the road sector, River Information Services (RIS) have been created to advance IWT in terms of safety and efficiency of transports by means of telematics, with the ultimate goal to improve its share in multi-modal transport chains. Since the beginning of the creation of RIS within European projects funded in the Framework Programmes (FP) of the European Commission (EC) around the millennium, the EU has been actively supporting the RIS initiative, which led into a European Directive (2005/44/EC) on the implementation of RIS in the member states. Since then the implementation of RIS infrastructure and services has progressed a lot and is heading towards a harmonized implementation in Europe around the year 2020."br" Under the umbrella of e-freight and embedded into multiple FP-funded projects, serious attempts have been made and are still ongoing to progress with the multi-modal exchange of digital transport information for logistics purposes. In line with the Digital Single Market Strategy, the European Commission has launched the DINA (Digital Inland Waterway area) initiative which aims at fostering the digitalisation of logistics information flows in inland navigation."br" The Horizon 2020 (H2020) project “Architecture for EurOpean Logistics Information eXchange” (AEOLIX) started in September 2016 and aims at overcoming the current fragmentation of digital logistics information by creating a neutral platform which allows to connect data streams from different sources and transport modes and provide easy access to the information for logistics players."br" viadonau as the Austrian RIS Provider is actively supporting the DINA initiative and pushing the use of RIS for logistics purposes in order to strengthen the role of IWT in European transport. Within the project AEOLIX, viadonau is actively involved in the “Living Lab Danube” which aims at increasing the use of digital transport information by the stronger use of electronic reporting capabilities and connection with other types of data like vessel position or status of the inland waterway infrastructure."br" Within the AEOLIX Living Lab Danube, digital flows of transport information shall be demonstrated for transports in the Danube corridor between Austria and Romania and fed into the “AEOLIX Platform” which connects digital data streams from various sources and transport modes. It will be investigated under which conditions privacy related information collected by the governmental RIS Providers can be shared within the AEOLIX Ecosystem. Through the involvement of several logistics players, the AEOLIX concept will be evaluated with respect to its maturity and benefit."br" Since the AEOLIX projects will run until mid-2019, it is foreseen to present at the TRA 2018 the current state of play in River Information Services in Europe, their connection to EU regulations and funding instruments as well as inter-mediate results from the AEOLIX Living Lab Danube which will for the first time connect cross-border IWT information directly to an inter-modal data hub for logistics users.