Space for Intermodal Transport Workshop

This event is being held in partnership with BCIMO as part of the Clean Futures Catalyst which aims to support transport-related businesses through an extensive programme of free events.

Join us in Dudley, West Midlands, UK for this free in-person workshop.

In March 2025, the European Space Agency will launch an exciting funding opportunity called Space for Intermodal Transport. This initiative is designed to support studies and projects that harness satellite data to revolutionise intermodal transport.

Join us at this workshop to dive into the Space for Intermodal Transport opportunity. This event will bring together innovative solution developers and stakeholders who are eager to enhance their intermodal transport operations. It's a unique chance to exchange ideas, forge partnerships, and drive the development of cutting-edge solutions that will shape the future of intermodal transport.

Agenda

What is Intermodal Transport?

Intermodal transport is an innovative approach to moving goods using multiple modes of transportation, such as trucks, trains, ships, and planes, without handling the goods during transfers. This method can not only enhance efficiency and flexibility but can also promote environmental sustainability. By seamlessly integrating various transportation modes, intermodal transport can reduce congestion, lower emissions, and optimise the overall supply chain, making it a smarter and greener choice compared to traditional methods.

What Ideas will we support?

We are looking for innovative ideas that leverage space data and advanced technologies to enhance intermodal transport. This includes solutions that address environmental sustainability, efficiency, flexibility, and safety. Examples of supported ideas include:

• Environmental Sustainability: Reducing road congestion and optimising transport choices to minimise emissions. 
• Efficiency and Flexibility: Implementing advanced tracking systems and demand-responsive transport models to create seamless and cost-effective operations. Using GNSS and IoT devices for real-time updates on the location of passengers and goods can propose alternative transport combinations.
• Safety: Ensuring reliable communication in low-connectivity areas and minimising handling of goods to reduce risks of theft or damage. 

We seek business ideas that showcase market potential, viable service concepts, technical feasibility, and value from space data or technology.

Why are we holding this Workshop?

Intermodal Transport presents numerous challenges, including coordinating various modes of transportation, ensuring standardisation, managing tracking, and collaborating with stakeholders. This workshop aims to bring together diverse participants to explore how space data and advanced technologies such as automation, AI, cloud computing, and blockchain can be integrated to innovate business processes and create seamless intermodal transport systems. The goal is to brainstorm ways to improve overall supply chains in terms of flexibility, speed, and costs, while also contributing to the decarbonisation of freight transport. Additionally, the workshop aims to facilitate matchmaking between solution developers and stakeholders. 

The European Space Agency (ESA), in coordination with the General Secretariat of Telecommunications and Post of the Greek Ministry of Digital Governance, has opened a tender on the implementation and management of an ESA Business Incubation Centre (ESA BIC) in Greece. 

To support interest in this opportunity ESA Space Solutions is organising a virtual Information Day for potential bidders in Greece for the morning of 7th October. Join on Wednesday 7th October 10:30 CEST to hear from an expert panel with representatives of ESA, the General Secretariat of Telecommunications and Post of the Greek Ministry of Digital Governance on ESA’s common approach towards business incubation and the objectives for ESA BIC Greece. The aim of this webinar is to showcase the ESA BIC model and its success across ESA Member States.

The open tender - 'AO10521 - ESA BIC Greece (2021 -2026)' – is due to close on 20 November 2020. It is open for Greek companies to submit proposals for the implementation and management of the ESA BIC in Greece. 

Please see the draft agenda below: 

INTRODUCTION AND WELCOME 

09.30 - 09.40 

THE OPPORTUNITY - BACKGROUND AND INFORMATION SESSION  

09.40 - 10.10

THE PERSPECTIVE OF AN ESA BIC 

10.10 – 10.40  

QUESTIONS 

10.40 – 11.00   

CLOSE  

11.00

To register for this event, please do so below:

With the aim of providing evidence of the advantages deriving from the link of space and 5G technologies, ESA has initiated a dialogue with several user communities and stakeholders, presenting a number of application areas of specific interest to the local user communities and economic/societal context.

This specific Announcement of Opportunity originated from three collaboration agreements between:

- the Agency and Roma Capitale 

- the Agency and the University of L’Aquila/the Abruzzo Region/the Municipality of L’Aquila 

- the Agency and Municipality of Torino 

In agreement with the above stakeholders, ESA has defined relevant use cases that can show-case in an operational context the benefits of using space in conjunction with 5G, at the same time leading to sustainable services to the benefits of the local communities. The initiative aims to stimulate submission of proposals by industry and institutions to study, develop and demonstrate applications based on space and 5G addressing the use cases and /or themes subject of the following thematic calls: 

• Structural health monitoring and risk modelling (opening soon)
• Law enforcement and emergency response (closed)
• Cultural Heritage (closed)
• Intelligent Transport (closed) 

For more information please join one of our webinars:

 More information follows soon.

Documents

	Feasibility Studies
	Outline Proposal Template
	Full Proposal: Cover Letter and Full Proposal Template
	Demonstration Projects
	Outline Proposal Template
	Full Proposal: Cover Letter, Full Proposal Template and Milestone Payment Plan calculator

Two and a half years ago, the founders of Hiber wondered why only 10 per cent of the globe was covered with gsm and mobile networks, limiting the availability of IoT (Internet of Things). 

So the Dutch Government-backed start-up got in touch with the European Space Agency and set about changing this. The resulting collaboration saw the development of Hiber’s own constellation/satellite network, and the creation of two nano satellites (10cm cubes) or ‘Cubesats’ for delivering global connectivity – known as ‘Hiberband’. (The company is called ‘Hiber’ because these terminals hibernate most of the time, turning on only when a Hiber satellite passes overhead to relay positioning and status updates.) 

HiberOne and HiberTwo were launched at the end of 2018 – and Hiber announced this week that the satellites are now commercially operational – bringing IoT connectivity to the vast majority of the world currently lacking a network. 

First to offer global IoT connectivity as commercial service 

Traditional satellites that provide wider coverage are expensive and power-hungry, which has meant many IoT applications and services have not been economically viable (e.g. monitoring soil moisture to improve production efficiency and crop quality in third world countries). 

Hiber’s service uses a process that is significantly cheaper than existing global solutions, making it a truly global IoT network. As many potential IoT projects fail due to lack of connectivity,  Hiber estimates there is a potential €7 bn opportunity for growth.

“It is beyond exciting to be the first company bringing full IoT-connectivity to the globe — as well as being the first ever commercial Dutch Satellite operator,” said Laurens Groenendijk, Co-Founder of Hiber. “The commercial applications for Hiberband in the IoT-industry are limitless. We look forward to powering diverse projects, from tracking cattle to tackling climate change and more effectively growing crops.”

Frank Zeppenfeldt, from ESA’s telecommunications Future Projects Division, says: “Hiber is now a company with 35 people. This activity demonstrates the importance of a lightweight mechanism to attract newcomers and explore and support their proposed initiatives. Without this, the above would never have happened. Hiber has received the title of ‘Commercial Startup Launch of 2018’  from Amazon Web Services, but more importantly, has attracted a good amount of private capital.”

Coen Janssen, Co-founder/Director of Business Analytics, Hiber says: “The Hiber team has made a mark in history by getting this new technology developed, tested in space and up and running within 2.5 years of conception of the company, with people that have flocked to us from pretty much all over the world; 35 individuals with 20 different nationalities.” 

He continues: “As a team we are also part of something bigger and without the support of ESA we would never even have embarked on this journey. We are well on our way to set the global standard for Low Power Global IoT connectivity and are on to something truly disruptive for many industries and people all over the planet. We started working on a pie in the sky idea and now it is becoming a reality!”

Among Hiber’s pilot customers is Clean2Antarctica, a team of environmental campaigners using a solar powered car made from waste plastic to cross the Antarctic.

Other customers include a Dutch company which will be bringing climate stations to schools in rural communities in Peru, Tanzania and Sri Lanka to educate tomorrow’s smart farmers and Blik Sensing, which helps manage water resources by providing insight into global groundwater levels.

High winds, extreme tides, temperature changes, unusual traffic loading and ageing materials can put bridges under enormous pressure, occasionally to the point where they become dangerous. 

Last year’s bridge collapse in Genoa, which killed 43 people, is a tragic example.  ESA is now supporting a unique and innovative service initiated by a team from the University of Nottingham, to monitor the health status of bridges.

The University’s Geospatial Institute and its industrial partners such as UbiPOS UK Ltd., have developed a ‘world-first’ integrated sensor called GeoSHM-Lite for monitoring the structural ‘deformation’ of long-span bridges. GeoSHM  is the result of research led by Dr Xiaolin Meng, which originated from his PhD work at the University 20 years ago.

The GeoSHM system combines GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite Systems) for on-site monitoring with Earth Observation technologies for inspecting land movements, to offer an integrated solution for bridge maintenance.

Dr Meng’s team developed a prototype with ESA, which was installed on the Forth Road Bridge in Scotland in 2014. A major strategic link between the north and south of Scotland, the bridge’s maintenance is essential to transport in the region. When in 2015 a truss end link fractured on one of the north-east tower girders, the entire bridge was closed. However, critical observations from GeoSHM complemented other data to provide sufficient confidence to re-open the bridge.

“Experts at the Nottingham Geospatial Institute worked with Amey to assess the behaviour of the bridge under load tests and high wind loading by attaching remote GPS sensors to the bridge. In association with other health monitoring sensors, we were able to monitor the bridge’s condition and safety behaviour in real time.  Data from structural health monitoring supports asset management by providing smart solutions which help decision making, reduce closures, cost and public inconvenience,” said Mr Bill Valentine, Technical Director at Forth Bridges Unit of Amey Consulting.

The success of the system led to a potential investment of £8,500,000 from China and as a result, GeoSHM is now being used on three Yangtze River bridges in China.  

“We liaised with bridge operators and other key infrastructure owners to understand their upmost needs and the gaps in the market,” says Dr Meng. “We worked with ESA to build our expertise in relevant fields and used our existing strengths to fill these gaps.”

GeoSHM provides real-time measurements of bridges during normal and abnormal loading conditions and gives a complete picture of the structure in its changing landscape, identifying threats caused by environmental conditions, land motion, engineering works, landslip, mining and industrial activity.

Some structural monitoring systems were already using GNSS, but these had limitations when applied to long, flexible structures like bridges. Issues such as the very high cost of receivers, positioning accuracy and signal blockage impeded reliability. GeoSHM has solved these and taken patent pending technology to the next level with several novel features.  

“The system can give more accurate estimates of the movement of the bridge long-term – for factors like thermal expansion (changes as a result of temperature increases) - as well as giving deformation (strain) estimates of a wide area of land surrounding the bridge. This is of critical importance to infrastructure operators and owners,” says Roberta Mugellesi Dow, ESA’s technical officer.

GeoSHM targets a large bridge monitoring market that is worth approximately USD 2 Trillion globally. There are more than 264 long-span bridges in the world, over half of which are in China: and  GeoSHM is being supported by a subsidiary of China Railway Group, Asia’s largest construction company. The creation of a supply chain for GeoSHM has also created 50 jobs globally as of 2018, with bases in London, Nottingham and China. 

Dr Meng says: “We are very lucky to have had such support from ESA, they helped to make my dream come true and turn my PhD into reality! ESA has helped me make the transition from academic peer to being able to implement the idea – put it into practice. I cannot claim I’m a business man, but ESA provided the valuable input to deliver the project – they have been so supportive.”