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Report on the launch of the EU e-Freight programme.
Published: 25 February 2009
By:
DG TREN, on behalf of the European Commission and in line with one of the main measures of the 2007 Freight Transport Logistics Action Plan, wants to establish a roadmap for the development of an integrated electronic application that is capable of following the movement of goods into, out-of and around the European Union.
This concept has been entitled e-Freight and will operate within and across all freight transport modes. The e-Freight vision is of a paper-free, electronic flow of information associating the physical flow of goods with a paperless trail built by information and communication technologies. It includes the ability to track and trace freight along its journey across transport modes and to automate the exchange of content-related data for regulatory and commercial purposes.
The conference on February 17th in Brussels attended by delegates from across the Member States explored the commercial and policy opportunities that the implementation of e-freight can bring and thereby kick-start the roadmap for its application. The outcome set a positive political signal as regards the importance that the Commission attaches to the issue of e-Freight and identified that several sectors of the logistics and transport community have already developed their own in-house e-Freight systems - the opportunity is to develop an overarching system that will link them together.
Jonathan Scheele, Director DG TREN - Transport Logistics, TEN-T and Co-Modality introduced the importance and challenge of interfacing the existing industry systems including those of various national customs organisations during multi-modal interchange. The risk is that the programme will proliferate the dominance of the large integrators at the expense of SME companies. Equally, this documentation streamlining process has to produce cost savings and added value.
Frederic Leger from IATA described how the air cargo industry has saved $4.9 billion by paperless systems since their introduction in 2000 but that there were challenges for smaller operators. In reality, air cargo consolidations are mostly composite e-freight and paper systems.
Jan Tore Pedersen described the operation of ARKTRANS - Scandinavia's freight logistics eFreight system and the challenges for the introduction of eCustoms in the Community were set out by Jozef Hupperetz from DG-TAXUD.
John Berry, head of the e-Freight programme for DG TREN described the three year eFreight project and identified the related projects that already exist: the challenge will be as much to get the EU Commission's diverse research programmes with different budgets to work together as locating the linking software itself. The slightly unworthy thought was that there was at least one member of CILT(UK) in the audience whose existing software product could do the job right now.
Indeed, Stephen Harley, Logistics Director, Ford Europe went on to describe how Ford, their suppliers and distributors is operating an in-house e-freight system right through from production planning to customer handover.
Workshops explored the commercial conditions and opportunities of eFreight and the policy implications including legislation and standardisation. One presenter outlined the challenges in paperless communication between the Eastern and Western trading communities, currently entirely different. Many delegates stressed the need for a user-friendly and adaptable linking system that will allow the well developed proprietary systems to continue to operate. Progress and contributions to this programme can be found on http://www.aimgroup.eu/2009/e-freightbrussels
Jolyon Drury FCILT represents CILT(UK) on the EU Relations Committee of ELA.