The Professor of the Department of Applied Economic Analysis of the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (ULPGC), Beatriz Tovar de la Fé, is studying the possibilities of implementing so-called flying boats for the maritime transport of goods on certain inter-island routes.
As reported this Friday by the ULPGC in a statement, this is the European Airship project, which analyzes the viability of the so-called "ground effect vehicles" (flying boats or wing-in-ground vehicles) for maritime transport, with the aim of decarbonizing and reducing polluting emissions.
An emerging project whose prototype is being worked on, the professor told EFE, who pointed out that once the autonomous transport of goods by these unmanned boats is viable, the transport of people would be studied.
The technological advancement of the last decade in unmanned drone flights has facilitated the development of ground effect vehicles, which could have a higher speed than maritime vessels and be less expensive than air transport, the note indicates.
They are designed to take advantage of the ground effect, which allows these ships to fly with greater lift and less resistance, which increases their energy efficiency and sustainability.
In this case, the prototype vehicle that bears the name of the project has been studied, with the reservations that this entails given that the evaluations regarding its technical and economic capacity are preliminary.
The operation of this vehicle has been simulated on predetermined routes, currently covered by ferry service; analyzing the transport costs per kilometer of the Airship, it has been possible to establish which would be the most profitable routes.
In addition to these data, with the considerations referring to initial costs and income, it has been possible to conclude that the three main factors that influence the viability of the simulated transport operations with Airship are number of daily journeys, working days of operation per year and price.
Airship is a European project led by a consortium of universities, under the coordination of the Polytechnic University of Madrid, and in which the Universities of Trisolaris, Luxembourg, Tampere and Tallinn participate, as well as La Palma Research Centre (LPRC) and the Institute for Systems and Computer Engineering, Technology and Science (INESCTEC) of Portugal.
The project has funding from the Horizon Europe program, through the HaDEA (European Health and Digital Executive Agency).
The results of this analysis have been published in an article in the journal Transport and Telecommunication Journal, signed, in addition to Beatriz Tovar herself, by the professors from the University of Tallinn Riina Otsason, Olli Pekka Hilmola and Ulla Tapaninen.
