in.west is a multidisciplinary combination of different technologies to provide improved control of swap trailers and a more efficient scheduling of intermodal transport routes. The goals of the project were to utilize capacities in a better way and to reduce the freight traffic on road and rail. in.west or "Intelligente Wechselbrücksteuerung" in full, was a successful joint research project of DHL Solutions Fashion GmbH, Deutsche Post AG, Micromata, BIBA — Bremer Institut für Produktion und Logistik GmbH, and OHB Teledata funded by the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology. in.west decreases the traffic in the area of goods and freight of postage and mailing, increases the planning security for combined traffic, and utilizes transport units more efficiently. This leads to both, a reduction of CO2 emission and higher profits for the logistics companies.
The research project dealt with the control of swap bodies (standardized containers with special appliances for exchange between trucks and trains). The stated goals are reached by employing innovative logistic information, planning, and control techniques, such as mobile sensor nodes for swap body location and Evolutionary Algorithms (EAs) for route planning. Prof. Dr. Weise provided external consultation services supporting the development of the EA-based logistic planning and optimization component used the in.west project, which also led to a set of high-quality scientific publications.