Tour d´EFFORTS

Dear colleagues,

we have started a new webpage at TuTech carrying the title

greentransport.eu

Here we will from now on fuel the debate about transport and protection of
the environment, especially climate protection with our blog articles.

The upbeat will be direct reports from the UN Climate Conference in
Copenhagen from Monday 7 until Friday 18 December 2009.
As far as possible with pictures and sound.

You can follow the blog posts of greentransport.eu on twitter under the
name greentransprt

And you are all invited to comment the blog entries in order to start the
debate, in German or English, as you like!

Best Regards

Jan Prahm

--
TuTech Innovation GmbH
Jan Prahm
Diplom-Kaufmann
EU Office
Harburger Schlossstrasse 6-12
21079 Hamburg, Germany
Tel.: +49 40 76629-6363, Fax: +49 40 76629-6369
mailto:prahm@tutech.de
Web: http://www.tutech.de
Public Key (PGP): http://keys.tutech.net/jpr

Geschaeftsfuehrer: Dr. Helmut Thamer
Handelsregister: HRB 51682 Hamburg
USt.-ID-Nr.: DE 811 481 083

Difficult answer

It took quite a time to analyse the differences in the CO2 emissions between my chosen way of travelling by trains, ships and plane and the "plane-only" alternative.
In the figure "Tour d`EFFORTS CO2-Emissions" you can see the comparison of costs, duration and CO2-emissions of the two alternatives.
It can easily be seen that the mixed alternative took longer and was costlier than the plane-only alternative. Whether the mixed alternative was more climate friendly, which was the hypothesis when planning the trip, or not is difficult to answer.

Large differences between CO2-calculators

It is remarkable what differences in the CO2 emissions occur depending on what CO2-calculator you use. Therefore we calculated three different scenarios: One which gave the lowest results, one that gave the highest results and one that gave a result in between these two extremes. The results are represented by the first three double-columns of the right graphic. A special problem we found is that most CO2-calculators up to now do not include ferries and ships for passenger transport so for these legs of the journey, which constituted a large amount of the total distance, it was especially difficult to calculate the CO2 emissions.
Those CO2 calculators including ferries we found were CarboNZero from New Sealand, TravelMatters from the USA and LeedsTidal from Leeds in UK did not explain in a transparent way how they calculated the ferries´CO2-emissions. Consequently we made up our own calculation of the CO2-emissions. For the non-ferry legs we used Greenmiles from Germany because they explain in an exemplary way how the emissions are calculated. This calculation is shown in the very right double column of the right graphic.


The CO2-emissions of the "Pride of Bilbao"

For the legs by ferry we calculated the CO2 emissions with the following data:

For the journey from Portsmouth to Bilbao we learned that for a single trip the ship uses on the average 130 tons of fuel. Taking the normal ratio of carbon to CO2 of 1:4 this means 520 tonnes CO2 are emitted on the average during such a trip.
Now the question is how to distribute this over the passengers and freight transported.
It would inadequate to just split it by the weight transported because even with all cabins completely booked the total weight of the 2372 passengers would only add up to 200 tonnes taking an average weight per person of 75 kg. To transport passengers cabins are needed, restaurants, bathrooms, entertainment areas, etc. which mean weight in the construction of the ship and which has to be allocated to the passengers as well.
The lorries all together would constitute a maximum weight of 2480 tonnes if all places are booked. This would mean that 92% of the CO2 emissions are caused by the lorries but this would not be fair so a different distribution method was needed.

Willingness to pay for CO2-emissions certificates

In times of dicussions of the inclusion of ships in an Emissions Trading System (ETS) it has to be discussed how the arising costs for emissions certificates could be passed on or at least allocated to certain users of transportation.
This largely depends on the "willingness to pay". As we do not yet know the willingness-to-pay for CO2 emissions of freight transporters and passengers the current willingness-to-pay for the actual transport is a good indicator.

Then the picture looks quite different:
In June 2008 the average price for the transportation of a lorry from Portsmouth to Bilbao by the P&O run ferry "Pride of Bilbao" was 890 GBP and for a single person the lowest available fare for one leg was 133 GBP (if a return ticket was booked).
With a maximum capacity of 62 lorries of 16,50 metres each this sums up to 55180 GBP revenues from the lorries and with a maximum capacity of 2372 passangers this sums up to 315 476 GBP in revenues from the passengers. All in all that are 370 656 GBP Total revenues.
Here the larger part is payed by the passengers, 85%, and only 15% by the lorries.

Taking these proportions it means that 2372 passengers are responsible for 442 tonnes CO2 for the whole trip, averaging 0.186 tonnes CO2 (186 kg) per passenger and 78 tonnes CO2 for 62 lorries, averaging 1.26 tonnes CO2 (1260 kg) per lorry.

Method to calculate CO2-emissions of ferries

So the method to calculate the CO2-emissions per passenger/lorry is as follows:

1. Total amount of tonnes of fuel used per trip multiplied by 4 = Total tonnes CO2
2. Max. no. of passengers multiplied by the price per ticket per passenger: Total revenues passengers
3. Max. no. of lorries multiplied by the transportation price per lorry: Total revenues lorries
4. Add Total revenues passengers and Total revenues lorries: Total revenues
5. Divide Total revenues passengers by Total revenues: Revenue Portion passengers
6. Divide Total revenues lorries by Total revenues: Revenue Portion lorries
7. Multiply Revenue Portion passengers with Total tonnes CO2: CO2 emission passengers
8. Multiply Revenue Portion lorries with Total tonnes CO2: CO2 emissions lorries
9. Divide CO2 emissions passengers by total number of passengers: CO2 emissions per passenger
10: Divide CO2 emissions lorries by total number of lorries: CO2 emissions per lorry

Conclusion

Of course this is a very simplistic approach hypothesising an ideal usage of the ship but the intention was to develop a feasible calculation method. The arguable aspect is whether the "willingness-to-pay-for-fare" is an appropriate indicator for the willingness-to-pay for CO2-certificates or not. For the time being I have to say I do not know of any better method but I would be pleased to hear of better ones.

The answer to the above asked questions has to remain unaswered until more accurate data and calculation instruments are available.


Outlook

To get more realistic results for the CO2-emissions several parameters would be needed:
1. the exact type of fuel used and its content of carbon
2. the (at least average) actual usage of the ship splitted to passengers, cars and lorries
3. the actual revenues from each of these categories of customer groups.

If anyone at P&O ferries can provide these data or at least CO2-emissions based on the method as described above I would be very pleased.

Labels: CO2 Emissions

Today, on again a for the time of year exceptionally warm day, I visited Humberto Moyano of the Port of Gijon Port Authority, responsible for Knowledge Management and R&D activities.  Ana Gomez, a systems engineer from ISDEFE from Madrid had also come to meet me. After a discussion about the dissemination and the possibilities how he as leader of the SP 3 "Port Organisation" can contribute to the dissemination, he gave a very good introduction to the port and its plans for the future. The port is currently expanding the port area which will increase the port land surface by almost 50%. The construction is currently well under way and is planned to be finished 2010. The coal terminal will be moved to this new port area and in its old space a container terminal with 1 Mio TEU annual handling capacity will be built.

The theory

In the port processes lies the main interest of the Port of Gijon. Its goal is to become a 5th generation port which is oriented to the TEN network, has an intelligent transport system (VTMIS), facilitates collaborative logistics and provides state-of-the-art e-logistics services.

This requires a sound knowledge and research about how the current port processes have to be developed to achieve the above described goal.

The practice

After this theoretical introduction we went on a tour of the port to see the practical side of the port.

We started at the old customs house which is the only old building in the current port. 

The structure of the cargo that is handled becomes quickly very clear when looking at what is lying on the quays:

Iron ore for the Arcelor Mittal steel factory in Gijon

 

Coal for the Arcelor Mittal steel factory and for the 750 MW power plant in Gijon and other customers in Spain.

Another important export product is cement.

Then we came to the construction site of the new port. With these concrete "boxes", which can float, the breakwater in the

30 meter deep water is built up to 15 metres high above the sea, in total a wall of 45 meters height from the sea ground to the top level. The concrete boxes are made in the port, tugged to the site of

the wall and then flooded with water and positioned with GPS to bring them in the correct position. Afterwards they are filled with stones to stabilise them and to give them the strength to withstand the Atlantic storms.

Some of the main customers of the Port of Gijon, Arcelor Mittal steel factory, the power plant and the cement factory, are situated in a valley next to the port. The port and the valley are connected with a tunnel through which we went to see the factories.

 

 

 

 

The power plant

The cement factory

The valley protects the city well against the local emissions of these industries but is still close to the port so this situation serves well all interests.

So, now all ports have been visited and described and I will end my report here. I hope you enjoyed reading.

Good bye, Jan Prahm, TuTech Innovation GmbH, Hamburg

Labels: The ports visited

After the ship had moored in Santurtzi, which is the ferry port of Bilbao 15 km north of the actual city of Bilbao, we could soon leave the ship. By train from the nearby station I went to the city centre to check into my hotel. Then I took a walk around the city in the sun during which the temperature rose to friendly 22°C. I had a breakfeast in one of the many and very nice tapas bars and during my walk along the river I came to the Guggenheim Art Museum of Bilbao . After a visit to the exhibition "300 years of American Art" I had a lunch and a siesta on the terrace of a tapas bar next to it. The rest of the day I spent with looking around the city.

After boarding the ferry "Pride of Bilbao" in Portsmouth to go to Bilbao the first thing I did was to ask to change my cabin because they had booked me into a cabin at the stern, which is directly above the engine which causes a lot of vibrations, despite the damping. And it was below the discotheque at the same time. It was no problem to get a cabin mid-ship which turned out to be very nice. Again I had a cabin on my own, but this time on the outside of the ship with a window!

Where to choose the cabin has always been an issue. The explanation of the origin of the word "posh" which I found hanging on the wall while I was exploring the ship, makes a reference to that topic:

We left Portsmouth and its distinctive "Spinaker Tower" in time into a calm see with only some residual swell.

Then I noticed a thing I wasn´t aware of, partly because P&O Ferries, who operates the Pride of Bilbao, didn´t give any hints to it on its webpage, is that since 1995 a research programme goes on for surveying whales and dolphins in the English Channel and the Bay of Biscay. Everyone knows about the reputation of the Bay of Biscay as sometimes having very rough weather conditions. But what is hardly known is that it is one of the best places to watch dolphins and whales.

Since 1995 the "Biscay Dolphin Research Programme" is running and since then on every trip of the Pride of Bilbao a wildlife observation officer is on board and scans the ocean for those animals. On the helicopter deck on a display all the species that can be seen on the voyage are displayed, a line on the deck illustrates the length of them from the Dolphin of approx. 2 m to the Blue Whale of up to 27 m.

Many wild life enthusiasts go on this trip because it provides so good possibilities. I think P&O Ferries is missing a good marketing option here. But maybe in times of increasing environmental awareness they might add it to their social responsibility agenda.

The officer on board of this trip gave a one hour presentation and introduction to what it is all about and how to identify the spotted species. Unfortunately we didn´t see any animals during the rest of the day.

.

Labels: The ship cruises

The ferry from Dublin left two hours late, which resulted in a two hour delayed arrival in Liverpool. Therefore I missed the train my "Saver" ticket was booked to. So I was worried whether I could use my ticket from Liverpool to Portsmouth at all. In Germany the cheap tickets bind you to a certain train and you can only change the train unless it is the fault of Deutsche Bahn that you missed a train.

Not so in England. I was allowed to take a certain later train by which I arrived still well in time to catch the ferry to Bilbao.

Labels: The train rides

After we had accepted that the two frenchmen wouldn´t come, together with Brenda Daly, the Marketing and PR-Manageer of Dublin Port Company, Mick Sheehan, Training and Development Manager, Sylwia Owczarczak, Training Administrator, Deirdre Doyle, Coordination and Researcher, we met Enda Connellan, the CEO of Dublin Port Company over a cup of coffee. He was very interested in to hear about the challenges of communication in the EFFORTS project and was very supportive to this task.

A tour of the Port of Dublin

Brenda, Mick and I then started on a tour through the port by car. A remarkable thing I had already noticed when I had left the ferry is all the construction under way all over the port. It shows the high dynamic of Dublin and the port.

The terminals

We started with the Alexandra Quay East Container Terminal. The western berth is going to be modernised and parts of it are used for the around 50 cruise ships that called 2007 at Dublin. For the container handling on this terminal a very special mobile container crane is in operation:

While in Germany the container cranes come from China, in Ireland they come from Germany.

We saw the Lead and Zinc terminal and

carried on to the grain and feeding stuff terminal.

At the eastern part of the Alexandra Quay Container Terminal the equipment was modernised recently:

Across the river we could see the container bridges of the Marine Terminals Ltd. (MTL) which is Irelands most modern container terminal both in size and craneage. In total all container Terminals of the Port of Dublin had a throughput of 744000 TEU in 2007.

Here lies one of the interests of Dublin Port Co. in the EFFORTS project. Just across the street there residential areas and people feel disturbed by the noise such a terminal emits as well as the Ro-Ro ramp on the north bank of the river.

The Operations Centre

The Operations Centre was our next stop.

Here the 17000 annual ship movements are managed, supported by a state of the art Vessel Traffic Management system.

From the control room we had a good view on the port operations in action:

The building was inaugurated in 2007 and part financed by the European Union.

Hanging out with the pilots

This is at the same time also the pilot station. We got on board of one them and went out to pick up the pilot from a container feeder ship that was just leaving the port on its way to Southampton.

Inside it has five seats: One for the helmsman and four for pilots or passengers like us, equipped with suspension and a high back to provide safe seating also in rough weather. With this boat doing up to 26 knots such a ride can be very rocky. Sometimes the weather conditions are so rough that the pilot boat can not go out to collect the pilot. Then the pilot has to sail with the ship he was piloting to its next port of call.

The helmsman has all the modern navigational equipment available, like an Electronic Chart Display and Information System (ECDIS), Radar, but also a compass which is independent from electricity.

Luckily the weather was calm. So it was no problem to approach the ship very closely and we sailed parallel to it until the helmsman made contact between the ships.

Link: sevenload.com

Now the pilot could step over safely and was safely held by his colleague on the foredeck of the
pilot boat. Then we went back to the Operations Centre to bring the pilot ashore. This whole process took about 20 minutes.

Here you can see our small excursion group:

From left to right: Mick Sheehan, Deirdre Doyle, Sylwia Owczarczak and myself, next to the Operations Centre at the statue of the "The Mariner".

The training centre

After that we went to the training centre, where all Mick, Deirdre and Sylwia work. In the training centre softskills are developed like team working & interpersonal skills, communication but also the English language because there are a lot of foreigners working in the port like everywhere in Ireland. Among the hard skills are computer software and handling of dangerous goods. Handling skills like driving a crane are taught on-site.

The training is where one of the main interests of the Port of Dublin lies in the EFFORTS project.

After we had discussed all issues we finally went to the old warehouse district of Dublin which has been turned into an office area. We went to a pub which used to be Mick`s office when he worked at a wine and spirits warehouse. That was a lovely ending for a very interesting day with charming people. After a couple of pints of beer we had to go to the ferry terminal because my ship was scheduled to sail at 22:00 which it didn´t, but that is another story.

Labels: The ports visited

When she picked me up she was worried about Yann Tremeac and Jean-Louis Deyris who were supposed to arrive by plane at Dublin Airport but Mick Sheehan didn´t meet them at the airport. When we called Yann it turned out that Jean-Louis and he were still at the Paris Charles-de-Gaulle-Airport because their flight was overbooked and they were not let on board. Air France wasn´t able to provide an alternative flight to Dublin on that day so the two angrily went to their offices. They really missed a grand day out to the Port of Dublin.

After a pleasant and on-time sailing across the English Channel I came to the hotel in Portsmouth to stay over night and I very curious to find out whether my rail tickets would be there. And they were! They were one of the first things the receptionist would give me. But apart from that I can not really recommend the Queens Hotel. They did not have adapters from continental plugs to English plugs which I would have needed because I used my PC on the ship where I couldn´t plug into the power socket because the already had English sockets on the boat, so the battery was flat. The internet WLAN would have cost 5 Pounds/h or 10/d. And on top of that during the night odd noises like from water flowing through big pipes disturbed me. So all in all I was happy to continue my way the next morning by train.

I have to admit that I did not like  the CrossCountry train service from Southampton to Stafford very much either because it was too narrow for my long legs! It was like in plane from which I actually wanted to escape b using the train. However, with some delay I arrived in Liverpool.

I got very happy when I found an electronics store near the Liverpool Lime Street station where obtained the desired adapter at the reasonable price of 2,50 Pounds.

In the sunny afternoon I explored St. Albert Dock and the vicinity. Currently there are major construction sites everywhere that it seems they are rebuilding half of Liverpool centre.

On the ferry from Liverpool-Birkenhead to Dublin I got a cabin all on my own although it had 4 bunks because the ferry was not very full at this time of year, mostly lorry and their drivers. It was equipped with a bathroom with shower, a small desk and a carpet, so it was a cosy room. Because it was dark anyway it did not matter that the cabin was on the inside. So this was a perfect compensation to the hotel room in Portsmouth.

The ferry arrived one hour late in Dublin, but that didn´t matter because I was still two hours early for my meeting with the people from the Port of Dublin. I spent the waiting time in the cafeteria of the ferry terminal until Deirdre picked me up.

On 18. February in the morning I met Jean-Francois Emery, project leader technological development Monitoring of the Port of Le Havre Authority (PAH) in his office overlooking the port and the entrance of the port.

Main interests in EFFORTS

During our discussion Jean-Francois explained the main interest of the PAH in the EFFORTS project to me. They lie in the sub-project 1 „Ports and Environment“ of which it is the sub-project leader. This sub-project covers the following work-packages:

Power supply and air pollution

The problems of power supply to ships and air pollution they want to investigate whether this can be solved with filters on the exhaust pipes of the ships where the EFFORTS project partner Biowind has a technology it wants to develop further.

Noise

Noise is emitted especially from the cargo handling equipment in the Port of Le Havre, like the signalling sound of the straddle carriers. Here one solution might be to identify a sound frequency which can be heared in the vicinity of the carrier but is not heared further away in housing areas. But also lorries and trains emit a lot of noise the Port of Le Havre would like to reduce if economically viable solutions can be found.

Ballast water

An invisible but important problem are the mirco organisms that travel with the ballast water in ships for example from East Asia to Le Havre. These micro organisms can be dangerous for local species like oysters. Normally it is required that the ballast water is continiously changed during the ocean passage but only when at least 200 seamiles away from the next coast. This is never the case from Asia to Europe when coming through the Suez-Channel.
VTT and Ifremer have worked a lot in the EU-project MARTOB on solutions with modern environmentally friendly biocides that are put in the ballast water to kill the unwanted organisms and without damaging the steel of the ship. They want to finalise their research and the Port of Le Havre is of interested in the results.

Manoeuvering in ports

Besides that they have a special interest in the work package „Manoevering in ports“ of sub-project 2 „Navigation in Ports“ because the oil tankers which are hardly fit into the lock. There remains only very little space at the bow and the stern of the ship when once the ship is in the lock. This means stopping is a very crucial manoever as only the tug boat at the stern of the ship can help. I If the pilot had the exact position and distances the time for passing the lock could be shortened. The Portable Port Unit which is developed in the work package „Port ECDIS“ by Marimatech.

Passing berthed ships

Another problem they want to solve with the PPU is the follwoing: When a ship passes a berthed ship the passing ship has to be told to slow down because the berthed ship is set into motion along the quay. Especially when the mooring lines are tuned to low water, when they have to be long, but it is high tide now, they are longer. In this case the berthed can be moving quite much and eventually the mooring lines break. This can be avoided when the pilot is told about this situation and get´s the exact position of the berthed ship onto his PPU.

Port processes

The PAH has an interest in the results of sub-project 3 “Port processes” because PAH is reorganising itself. The government wants to privatise some parts of the port authority such as the cargo handling personnel. For this task they are interested to improve their knowledge, e.g. to make the best use of their port training centre.

Tour du Port du Havre

Following this extensive discussion Jean-Paul Raffini, the deputy head environmental manager of the Port of Le Havre joined us for lunch.

After lunch the two gentlemen took me on a tour through the port starting at the entrance with its distinctive tower of the harbour master.

We went on to the coal fired 2000 MW power plant

which is supplied with coal from the PAH owned and operated coal terminal.
At the container terminal “L´Atlantique” we saw the dutch tug boats in operation berthing a container ship.
At the multi bulk terminal we saw a 82000 t coal freighter being unloaded. With 12000 t per shift and three shifts per day this takes a little more than two days. The coal is stored and reloaded to barges, trains and lorries.
After that we went to the Pont de Normandie where we got a wonderful view over the natures reserve that had been created in order to compensate for the area needed for the

new container port. It is among the biggest nature reserves for birds in France.

Then we had to hurry up to catch my ferry which was leaving almost directly in front of Jean-Francois´ office.
When the ship left un-mooring and piloting could be seen in action.

The pilot boat bid farewell until the pilot went from board.

Link: sevenload.com

On a sunny but cold morning I got onto the train in Hamburg to Cologne. Thanks to my seat reservation I had power supply and a comfortable table where I could place my computer. In the quiet atmosphere of a Sunday morning I was able to do quite a lot of work. In the Ruhrgebiet with stops every ten minutes at big stations the people getting on and off the train got a little bit disturbing because the train became really crowded.

The Thalys train from Cologne to Paris Gare du Nord was quiet as well, but there was less space although I was sitting in a seat where four seats are facing each other with a table in the middle. And no power supply! But thanks to my extra big battery of my computer it was no problem to survive without power.

Changing stations (from Gare du Nord to Gare St, Lazare) in Paris to catch the train to Le Havre was no problem, but to get a taxi to get from the station to the hotel took some waiting time (15 minutes) because there was a long queue.

But the hotel itself is wonderful! The Hotel Vent d´Ouest http://www.ventdouest.fr/ is appointed in a maritme, warm and cosy style. With models of old fashioned sailing yachts, painted signboards with whales, ships and divers helmets. So this martime flair is exactly to the topic of the EFFORTS project and my tour. Whether the old fashioned ship equipment they display in the corridors are real antiques I do not know, but they create a very nice atmosphere. I felt at home immediately. So if you ever come to Le Havre, I can recommend this hotel.

Have you ever tried to buy a railway ticket for Britain online? For my leg from Portsmouth to Liverpool and return I bought one over theinternet. Selecting a train and price via the internet portal of National Rail Enquiries http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/ was not the problem. The problem is to get hold of the actual ticket. You can not just print it out as it is offered by Deutsche Bahn (German Rail)http://www.bahn.de/international/view/en/index.shtml .

What National Rail Enquiries offers is either to print it out at a so called FastTicket ticketing machine or to get it by mail. The problem with option one is that these ticketing machines are only available at selected stations. But I will get on the train at Portsmouth Harbour were I will arrive by ferry from Le Havre. And at this station there is no such machine.

Option two only works for adresses in UK, but I wanted it to be sent to me in Germany.

I thought now it is time to call the hotline to ask what to do to get the ticket. So I called the hotline and as usual I had to fight my way through the oral menue telling when I want to go from where to where at what time and so on. After that the system transferred me to an operator. But first of all the line was bad and the man started talking like a machine repeating to me what just had told the system.

My goodness, I thought, here it goes again. Then I had the chance to explain my problem to a real person! After 20 minutes searching! But before I could understand the answer, the line collapsed compeletly! So I dialled again, fought my way through the system and again had a person on the other end. Of course another person with a strong accent which made it even more difficult to understand him on top of the fact that the line was still bad. His eventual advice was: "Then you have to buy the ticket at the station directly." Thank you, I thought. The point about
cheap tickets is that they there is only a limited number of them which is usually fully booked when you want to buy them last minute. So this advice didn´t help at all.

Eventually I decided to get the ticket sent to the Queens Hotel http://www.queenshotelsouthsea.co.uk/ I am staying at in Portsmouth.

But what would a person do who wants to travel on by train right away without staying at some place?

With the hotel the risk is that the friendly people at the reception might loose the mail, although I informed them.

Let´s see, I will report what happened when I am there on 18. February 2008.

By Jan Prahm, TuTech Innovation GmbH

In my role as leader of the dissemination activities I am going to visit the sub-project leaders of EFFORTS. This means I will visit the Port of Dublin for SP 1 "Navigation in Ports", the Port of Le Havre for the SP 2 "Ports and Environment" and the Port of Gijon for the SP 3 "Port Organisation".

Improvement of the communication

The aim of this tour is to get a deeper insight into the project activities in order to facilitate reports about the most relevant results, proceedings and events of EFFORTS and to improve the project internal communication on the one side. This on the other side enables an effective communication towards external observers of the project. Only by a sound knowledge of the proceedings in the project a sound dissemination of the project is possible. The dissemination of the successful work of a project like EFFORTS to the stakeholders, e.g, the EU-commission, is crucial for all project partners. It is important for the assessment of the project by the external observers as well as for the future exploitation of the project results. A good communication is necessary to earn the merits that good research means.

For the establishment of a good internal communication it is necessary to build up personal relations which are preliminary for trust. Trust between the project partners is necessary for the exchange of information because one does not share information with someone one does not trust. Such personal trustful relationships can only be established by personal contact where one can look into ones other eyes as it will happen during this trip. By reporting about the visits at the sub-project leaders all project partners and observers will get acquainted with the sub-projects they lead, their ports and the related challenges.

Attempt to travel climate friendly

As we are in a project about ports and ships and to be climate friendly I will travel by ship and rail and one leg by plane. One aspect is that by using a ship to arrive or leave the ports a much better understanding for the issues at stake can be developed. One becomes a real part of the system other than by flying in by plane where one usually stays a distant observer. It gives the opportunity to see the port operations live in action like berthing and mooring. It offers the possibility to talk to the operating personnel who are the research subjects of some of the work packages.

Although it is not an explicit topic of the EFFORTS project, climate protection is an issue in every mouth these days. Especially people like us in the European research project business travel a lot and cause quite a lot of CO2 emissions by it. And on top of that we are occupied with transport research. So we are the ones Europe looks at for solutions for more climate friendly transport solutions. Travelling by rail and ship is a small experiment and part of the intention is to give some inspiration to think about the way we work and travel.

News coverage of the trip by EFFORTS blog

The start of the tour will be 17 February 2008 and return to Hamburg will be 26 February. During this time I will cover the trip by reporting in a blog on the EFFORTS website. It will be reported about the information gathered "live" about the visited sub-project leaders and the ports. The reports will connect the visited people and places to the project and by this will support the cohesion of the project partners. Such live reports will make the project more palpable because they put faces and names to the abstract contents of the work packages.