Review of potential successful barge transport innovations. The challenge in this paper is to examine to what increased extent barge transport offers an alternative for road transport. The problem definition is: What policy is needed to stimulate innovations in barge transport that offer opportunities to increase the market of barge transport ? The paper reviews the most important literature and journal articles (which are scarce) on barge transport. The literature has been used as input to weigh the potential of barge innovations. The analysis leads to a number of conclusions that might have implications for the policy of governments to the barge transport sector. Firstly, policy goals should be defined realistic, because it will be very difficult to increase the market of barge transport. Secondly, maintenance of barge transport infrastructure should stay on an adequate level to enable further growth. Thirdly, policy should be focussed on stimulating innovations that aim for creating new markets as current barge markets show little growth potential. Fourthly, policy should aim for keeping existing markets, but not at all costs. Fifthly, the innovation portfolio consists of enough innovations, however, the balance in the portfolio can be improved. Finally, innovations must be weighed to determine their success potential. (Author/publisher)
Abstract