Improving performance of inland ships with hull optimizations, benefits and pitfalls

Inland waterway transport provides an environmentally friendly alternative for the transport of goods in those areas where an inland waterway infrastructure is present. Western Europe has such a network, with the river Rhine as an important backbone. The Maritime Research Institute Netherlands, MARIN, is involved in different projects to improve inland ship design and/or inland ship performance in specific situations and by a design for service approach. In this paper several aspects of projects are described: A comparison between the performance of existing inland ships, the optimization of a hull and a case study for transport of 45’ containers in a container service on inland waterways.