July Update of transitioning towards resilient multimodal corridors using digital twinning

Wednesday 31 July 2024

Wet and Dry

While we are possibly experiencing one of the wettest summers in years, we continue to work hard on the Digital Twinning of Resilient Corridors project. Although it is difficult to imagine now, much drier years will likely occur again, and an excess of water could also cause disruptions within the region of the Twente Canal. To better understand what this all entails, a consortium delegation has visited many industrial partners and a few shippers over the past few weeks. They learned about the daily practice of using the canal as the main form of transportation. The input shared by the interviewees and the requirements they formulated for the tools to be developed as an outcome of this project will now form the foundation for further actions.

The consortium is also very happy with the results of a group of students of the Breda University of Applied Sciences. These ambitious and productive students built a 'Do It Yourself' platform which has been generously shared with the members of our project to use and to test.

Team

With the arrival of Mohsen Bastani, our team is now complete and fully up and running. Moshen, welcome to the team! Happy that you are joining the project with your expertise and network! Would you like to introduce yourself and your work to us?

Hello readers!
I’m from Iran with a background in civil engineering. Over the past two years, I've designed a monitoring system for condition assessment of the Beatrix lock, focusing on the bed protection layer and finding out what happens underwater when ships pass through the lock. This work was conducted at the University of Twente in close collaboration with Heijmans.
Water and Climate
Understanding the negative underwater effects of large ship passages, especially during low water periods, sparked my interest in inland waterway systems. The challenges posed by drought impacts at the Twente Canal further motivated me to join this project. I aim to use simulation techniques and design climate-adaptive logistics to increase the resilience of the Twente multimodal corridor and prevent reverse modal shifts. Specifically, I want to explore strategies for managing ship traffic and, if necessary, temporarily deviating from inland waterway transportation to avoid damage that could trigger such shifts. Effective monitoring and timely prediction of disruptions are potential strategies that I am considering as initial ideas.
Learning on the job
Since joining the consortium as a PhD candidate on June 1st, I've participated in Tommy’s interviews with various stakeholders of the Twente Canal to understand different perspectives on the challenges during low water periods. By listening to interviewees and reviewing existing research, I am currently working on identifying applicable strategies to increase the resilience of Twente's multimodal corridors.
My goal is to generalize these strategies into a practical toolbox that can be applied to other multimodal corridors.
Next Steps
In the upcoming months, I plan to prioritise strategies to increase the resilience of logistics and supply chain systems, often transferring knowledge from different disciplines. Additionally, I will be reviewing methods to measure the resilience of these systems.

To give an idea of what Mohsen's previous research looked like in daily practice, there are these pictures:

Picture of the sonar setup, taken by Mohsen

A selfie taken on a cold day, while waiting for the measurements to run.

Stay tuned as we continue to build on these collaborations and drive pioneering solutions in resilience research and logistics!

More information

Click here for more information on the project and the Dinalog Consortium.

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