Hermes Project
ICL Iberia has been leading force behind an innovative European logistics project, HERMES, aimed at optimizing the design of a new freight railroad wagon. The new wagon is planned to be made of advanced materials, with the aim of improving its loading factor and of utilizing a new monitoring system. The project also included a new loading and unloading facility to optimize product transport and improve competitiveness and efficiency. This three-year, nearly $8 million project, has been funded by the EU as part of its Mobility for Growth “Smart Rail” (MG2.2) Horizon 2020 program. \
ICL has participated in the Hermes project as part of a consortium of companies, research centers and universities in France, Sweden, Denmark and Spain. Work has also focused on eliminating drawbacks to bulk transport by rail in Europe, and designing highly modular wagons that can be adapted to different goods within minutes. These wagons are planned to become suitable for over 90% of the European rail network, allowing for a 50% higher load capacity, modular and scalable unloading capacity and reducing dusting during unloading. The unloading station has been designed to be simple, robust and to improve unloading times by 80%.
