Project background

Around 2.5 million containers are transported annually on the German waterways. On the one hand, the waterways are of outstanding importance for the functioning of the economy. On the other hand, the infrastructure of the artificial federal waterways, including canals and locks, is outdated. Floods or possible terrorist attacks also pose a threat to the waterway infrastructure. Furthermore, it is not known what consequences the failure of individual critical elements of this system may have for other transport infrastructures, the economy and the population in the affected regions.

Project objectives

The aim of the PREVIEW project is to increase the resilience of the waterway infrastructure in Germany. Therefore, the damage effects and consequences will be analyzed and processed on the basis of the three safety scenarios of natural events, technical or human failure and hostile attacks. For the first time, the entirety of the hazards for the population as well as for transport and economy will be analysed. The resulting findings will be used to draw up contingency plans in order to effectively counter these hazards.

During the three-year duration of the project, the scientists of KIT-IIP will focus on scenario development, the assessment of damage consequences and the interdependence of critical infrastructures. A further task is the integration of the partial work into a holistic risk framework.

The results of the project will be incorporated into a simulation model, which illustrates possible hazardous situations using the example of the West German canal network. This enables end users to visualize the vulnerability of the infrastructure, the local communities and industries. Logistic models also make it possible to assess the economic impact of damage events in canals. The results benefit the end users and can then be transferred to the entire waterway infrastructure.