|
The DAPhNE project consortium has entered the last mile until the project’s finalisation in June 2019. With less than 4 months to go, the DAPhNE consortium uniting 23 partners from 9 Danube riparian countries delivers important results in project activities such as human resources development, eco-improvements for Danube ports, port development, innovation & new markets opportunities, port strategy & port network formation.
In terms of human resources development, the project partner from Austria (FHOO) together with the involved partners finalised the „Best practices report on HR in ports“. The report gives an overview of current examples of best practices regarding initial and continuing education & training in ports, mainly within the following Danube riparian countries: AT, HU, RO, BG, HR. The report emphasises that ports should be seen as “socio-technical” systems because, in practice, operations in port terminals are carried out by a partnership between human resources and technology. This partnership, however, can only be successful if appropriate emphasis is given to human resource management and particularly the training component, often an over-looked area that can have a significant impact on port performance.
Regarding eco-improvements of Danube ports, University of Upper Austria (FHOO) provides in its report on environmental key performance indicators an overview on the topic of environmental sustainability in inland ports. Firstly, the importance of sustainability in the transport sector in general is explained and the impact on inland ports. By means of projects and initiatives, measurements of environmental performance of inland ports are described. In addition, some best practice examples concerning how sustainability is done in some ports is provided as well as current measurement methods applied in Austria, Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia and Slovakia are discussed. Furthermore, under the coordination of FHOO, the good practice report on eco-improvements represents an inventory of examples from the Rhine-Danube region focusing on the methods and policies applied in order to help reduce the negative impact of port operations on the environment and thus promote sustainability.
Another field of action relates to the ongoing implementation of the pilot action for a Port IT Community System. A modular Port Community System is being implemented within the framework of Activity 5.3 of the DAPhNE project and 3 modules (core module - user management & data layer, cargo, tracking and tracing) have been developed and are being tested within the pilot action. For the participating Danube ports (Enns, Bratislava, Novi Sad and Smederevo), this provides an affordable alternative to commercial Port Community Systems, normally designed for large maritime ports. The system shall optimize port processes by digitalizing them (instant delivery of necessary information), reusing the data already available within the system (to avoid unnecessary repetitive filling of forms) and smart and secure data exchange. The pilot action has started in October 2018 and shall last until March 2019. The Romanian partners APDM and MPAC have completed the elaboration of two pre-feasibility studies for PCS implementation in the ports of Galati, Braila, Tulcea and Constanta. These studies are based on the technical and functional specifications elaborated by project partner RGO (in the form of Model architecture for PCS) and aim to prove their applicability in the region.
Under the coordination of project partner HFIP, the recently released „New markets studies” provides a general overview of the innovative markets that are relevant for the Danube in the upcoming period: industrial ecology, LNG as cargo, the Danube container market and Physical Internet.
Project partner iC consulenten has summarized their findings in terms of port development in several comprehensive reports such as “Guidelines for industrial development initiatives in ports” and “Report on public-private partnerships formation in the Danube region”.
In connection to the rollout of the Danube Ports Network platform, the DAPhNE consortium released the financing model and business plan meant to ensure the financial independence of the network once the DAPhNE project comes to an end in June 2019. Several funding scenarios have been identified and explained in order to ensure the durability of the DPN. Project partners Pro Danube International and Pro Danube Romania elaborated together the DPN survey, a questionnaire meant to be applied to the network members in order to assess the performance of this newly created entity. The questions cover a wide range of aspects, i.e. from the roles and responsibilities attributed within the network, performance of the governing bodies to the network composition, service portfolio and proposed financing sources.
All these findings have been discussed in detail during the last consortium meeting and work package leader meeting which took place on 06 February in Enns.
For more information about the project visit our website: dtp.interreg-danube.eu/daphne
|
