The Department of Maritime Transport Technology (M&TT) is the combination of five focus sections:
Free mobility and excellent transportation and handling systems for people and goods are corner stones of the accomplished welfare in the industrialized world. Ships transport worldwide more then 90% of all goods, from raw materials to consumer goods. For inland and hinterland transport reliable, cost effective, efficient, fast and flexible transport systems are essential.
In the Netherlands, the marine, dredging and transport sector has a share of more then 10% of the gross national product and many Dutch companies in this sector have leading positions on the world market, in particular the dredging industry. Dredging is essential for construction and maintenance of the hydraulic infrastructure and provides access to raw materials, e.g. construction materials and marine minerals.
Today however, limits in transport capacity and accessibility of cities, an experienced reduction of transport safety and reliability, increased ambient pollution and the occupation of scarce areas and energy resources by marine and transport systems put an ever increasing pressure on society. To ensure future accessibility of cities, new transport systems like underground transport systems, play an important role.
The essence of Maritime and Transport Technology is to develop, design, build and operate marine, dredging and transport systems and their equipment. In the past decades many new concepts and systems have been developed in this sector. Due to strong public pressure for more efficient and safer transport and in order to improve the competitive position of the Dutch and European marine, dredging and transport sector, it can be expected that this trend will continue at increased speed.
New generation transport and marine systems have to be based on new concepts, using distributed intelligence, combined with the application of smart components. This requires the further development of the knowledge of the dynamics and the physical processes involved in transport, dredging and marine systems, the logistics of the systems and the interaction between the equipment and control systems.
