thinkport VIENNA is a thinking and innovation workshop as well as an open mobility laboratory, which deals in a comprehensive way with the challenges of logistics in urban agglomerations on a long term basis. The initiative aims to be a catalyst, incubator and multiplier for new technologies, processes, services and knowledge to support freight logistic innovations.
“The port of Vienna and its huge area serves as a real test environment allowing to develop and evaluate innovative, complex systems, processes and technologies together with partners from research, business and city administration, and test them in the form of pilot projects, both in the city and the port of Vienna,” said Doris Pulker-Rohrhofer, Managing Director of the Port of Vienna.
In Austria, five mobility laboratories are currently being build up. The one in Vienna is the only one that focuses exclusively on freight transport and logistics. “thinkport VIENNA, the urban mobility laboratory, is a contribution of BOKU to the development of scientifically sound, sustainable logistics solutions for the city of the future”, says Josef Glößl, Vice Rector of the University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences, Vienna.
In practice, the focus is on future-oriented, integrated and smart planning and development of sustainable transport infrastructure as well as establishing smart logistics hubs with a particular focus on the “last mile”. Transport, handle, store, deliver – in the shortest possible way, while reducing the consumption of space and saving resources. This is one of the central issues for many potential pilot projects. In the age of digitisation and decarbonisation (conversion to environmentally friendly energy sources), new technologies often play a decisive role.
The range of potential projects ranges from logistics for organic food and environmentally-friendly delivery to final consumers in the city via computer-assisted warehouse logistics, to the test of self-propelled trucks in the port area. In addition there are initiatives to raise awareness for logistics among the population by explaining how it works: for example, from ordering a product online, to the delivery of the parcel to the recipients. The port of Vienna shall also be increasingly positioned as a location for start-ups from the logistics sector.
thinkport VIENNA presents itself as an open and widely ranged platform for companies and organisations interested in innovations for sustainable urban logistics. Apart from the entire transport and logistics industry, this includes also all economic operators, for whom sound logistics processes are indispensable – from trade groups to craft trades. Particularly important target groups are start-up companies, as they are innovative motors, as well as the city administration and its organisational units relevant to logistics.
The thinkport VIENNA initiative is funded by the Austrian Ministry of Transport, Innovation and Technology within the framework of a research support program for future mobility.
