Inland shipping in North Western Europe is well known transportation mode which can make use of a large and dense inland waterway network. However in the last 50 years no new small inland ships have been built. As a result the small inland fleet is diminishing, and cargo formally transported by small inland ships, risk being shifted to road transportation. There is a large risk that the available infrastructure of the small waterways will not be used at all, while this capacity is very much needed to deal with a part of the hinterland transport of the main seaports (Rotterdam, Antwerp) in the region. In order to reactivate the small inland waterway network, a new concept has been developed. To investigate the new inland navigation system, a model has been built which is composed out of three main sub-models: a model which deals with the developed concept (this sub model includes the network, the design of the barges and tug and the transport-economic aspect of the concept), a sub-model which describes the competitors of the concept and a competition model. The final output of the model will be a Net Present Value of the investment in the new system.