The Freight Trans­port Forum, which took place on 20 April 2023, addres­sed the future of logi­stics, mul­ti­mo­da­li­ty and, in par­ti­cu­lar, the steps nee­ded to moder­ni­se Swiss freight trans­port in a digi­tal and dyna­mic world. Top-class spea­k­ers infor­med the audi­ence about the latest rese­arch results, deve­lo­p­ments and chal­lenges in prac­ti­ce as well as new legal frame­work conditions.

The three intro­duc­to­ry spee­ches by repre­sen­ta­ti­ves of the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty, Sara Udavri (IKEA Sup­p­ly AG), Titus Büt­ler (Swiss Post) and Rai­ner Deutsch­mann (Migros-Genos­sen­schafts-Bund) cle­ar­ly demons­tra­ted the busi­ness community’s com­mit­ment to sus­tainable logi­stics. One lever for this is the shift of trans­ports into mul­ti­mo­dal logi­stics chains, in which ener­gy- and space-effi­ci­ent modes of trans­port such as ship­ping and rail should also play a lea­ding role. This is dif­fi­cult in a dyna­mic world with tra­di­tio­nal­ly less fle­xi­ble part­ners and limi­t­ed infra­struc­tu­re capa­ci­ties and invol­ves con­sidera­ble sup­p­ly risks. Howe­ver, based on the fin­dings of rese­arch, pre­sen­ted by Dr. Mat­thi­as Prandt­stet­ter (AIT Aus­tri­an Insti­tu­te of Tech­no­lo­gy) for the pro­vi­si­on and use of data and arti­fi­ci­al intel­li­gence, solu­ti­ons are emer­ging to be able to orga­ni­se incre­asing­ly dyna­mic and resi­li­ent trans­port chains. The data exch­an­ge struc­tures that are neces­sa­ry for this are alre­a­dy acti­ve in the field of CT, as exem­pli­fied by the DX I hub pre­sen­ted by Chris­toph Büch­ner (DX Inter­na­tio­nal) with govern­ment sup­port from Ger­ma­ny, or are in the pro­cess of being crea­ted due to the new legal basis in Switz­er­land, pre­sen­ted by Moni­ka Zosso (Fede­ral Office of Trans­port BAV). Dr. Peter Füg­lis­ta­ler (Fede­ral Office of Trans­port FOT) out­lined how Switz­er­land intends to inte­gra­te the rail freight trans­port sys­tem into mul­ti­mo­dal logi­stics and trans­fer it to the digi­tal world of tomorrow.

In Euro­pe, a nega­ti­ve deve­lo­p­ment can be obser­ved despi­te EEC Direc­ti­ve 91/440: Decli­ning modal split and high sub­si­dies for state rail­ways, litt­le cus­to­mer ori­en­ta­ti­on and inno­va­ti­on, as in many places in Euro­pe com­pe­ti­tors in rail freight trans­port still play a sub­or­di­na­te role. A fun­da­men­tal res­truc­tu­ring of the rail sys­tem is the­r­e­fo­re ine­vi­ta­ble in order to find a way out of the sub­s­idy trap. In doing so, the sys­tem must be made sus­tainable and risk-opti­mi­sed through the imple­men­ta­ti­on of auto­ma­ti­on and digi­ta­li­sa­ti­on by means of the DAK as the first step wit­hout alter­na­ti­ve. Howe­ver, this must be fol­lo­wed by the fur­ther deve­lo­p­ment of the sys­tem, espe­ci­al­ly in wagon­load traf­fic, in order to redu­ce the risk of fail­ure for the cus­to­mers and the owners of the state rail­ways ope­ra­tio­nal­ly and finan­ci­al­ly and to pro­mo­te cus­to­mer ori­en­ta­ti­on and inno­va­ti­on. One pos­si­ble solu­ti­on is to split the sys­tem into a net­work pro­vi­der of seve­ral play­ers with a sys­tem inte­gra­tor and a neu­tral last mile pro­vi­der out­side the trans­port mar­ket (see blog artic­le «Out­sour­cing the last mile and making it non-dis­cri­mi­na­to­ry»).

Review of the Freight Transport Forum: The most important points in detail

MULTIMODALITY – MODERNISING SWISS FREIGHT TRANSPORT

Against the back­drop of the cur­rent deba­te on the finan­cing of rail freight trans­port by the fede­ral govern­ment, the Freight Trans­port Forum dealt with the chal­lenges of mul­ti­mo­da­li­ty in logistics.

Welcome

In his wel­co­me address, Frank Fur­rer poin­ted out the thread run­ning through the VAP’s forums, from safe­ty in the area of con­flict bet­ween costs and qua­li­ty and new forms of coope­ra­ti­on in wagon­load traf­fic in 2019, through poli­tics in the green rush and the actu­al inno­va­ti­on poten­ti­al of auto­ma­ti­on and digi­ta­li­sa­ti­on in 2022, to the cur­rent forum, which deals with the future of logi­stics and mul­ti­mo­da­li­ty. The fun­da­men­tal rene­wal of the rail sys­tem and the har­mo­nious and powerful inter­play of all modes of trans­port are neces­sa­ry to make opti­mal use of the available capa­ci­ties of the various infra­struc­tures, to ensu­re a secu­re sup­p­ly of Switz­er­land and also to crea­te a place for rail in logi­stics. All this is in the inte­rest of Switz­er­land as a place to live and do busi­ness. Since EU Direc­ti­ve 91/440, i.e. well over thir­ty years ago, the sta­tes in Euro­pe have been try­ing to lead their own rail­way com­pa­nies to suc­cess. Despi­te large sub­s­idy pro­gram­mes in UCT, a decli­ning share of rail freight trans­port in the modal split can be obser­ved and rapidly incre­asing sub­si­dies to the state rail­ways are neces­sa­ry. There is no alter­na­ti­ve to moder­ni­s­ing and fun­da­men­tal­ly res­truc­tu­ring the sys­tem. It will once again cost the sta­tes a great deal of money and demand a lot from the indus­try. What it could look like will be dis­cus­sed tog­e­ther today.

Multimodality – On the Revision of the Freight Transport Act

Dr. Peter Füg­lis­ta­ler, Direc­tor of the Fede­ral Office of Trans­port, pre­sen­ted the Fede­ral Council’s pro­po­sal for the revi­si­on of the Freight Trans­port Act. This focu­ses quite stron­gly on mea­su­res to streng­then mul­ti­mo­da­li­ty, as there are prac­ti­cal­ly no mono­mo­dal trans­ports by rail. A rede­fi­ni­ti­on of the tran­ship­ment plat­forms, which are to enable more mul­ti­mo­da­li­ty and bund­ling, espe­ci­al­ly as city hubs, and their finan­cial and spa­ti­al plan­ning sup­port are an essen­ti­al impro­ve­ment of the frame­work con­di­ti­ons. A tran­ship­ment bonus is inten­ded to pro­vi­de incen­ti­ves to ship­pers to incre­asing­ly com­bi­ne dif­fe­rent modes of trans­port in their logi­stics chains. For the direc­tor of the Fede­ral Office of Trans­port, the Digi­tal Auto­ma­tic Cou­pling DAK is a key fac­tor for suc­cess and less future than urgen­tly nee­ded rea­li­ty. The state is happy to help on the way to this new rea­li­ty, but the initia­ti­ve must come from the economy.

Multimodality – On the needs of business – IKEA

Sara Udva­ri, Cate­go­ry Mana­ger Logi­stics at IKEA Sup­p­ly AG, empha­si­s­es the importance of sus­taina­bi­li­ty in the company’s sup­p­ly chain. The visi­on of crea­ting a bet­ter ever­y­day life for peo­p­le includes respon­si­bi­li­ty for the envi­ron­ment. As IKEA’s pro­ducts often make a long jour­ney through the sup­p­ly chain, it is important to find sus­tainable solu­ti­ons. To be cli­ma­te posi­ti­ve by 2030, IKEA focu­ses on redu­cing green­house gases, impro­ving ener­gy effi­ci­en­cy and sup­port­ing sup­pli­ers. In trans­port, the aim is to redu­ce green­house gas emis­si­ons by 70%, while in sto­rage the tar­get is to redu­ce CO2 emis­si­ons by 80%. To achie­ve these goals, IKEA is focu­sing on three key areas: incre­asing effi­ci­en­cy, repla­cing fos­sil fuels with inter­mo­dal solu­ti­ons and elec­tri­fi­ca­ti­on, and rethin­king the way pro­ducts are deli­ver­ed. IKEA is alre­a­dy com­mit­ted to inter­mo­dal trans­port and is curr­ent­ly at 46% inter­mo­dal solu­ti­ons glo­bal­ly. Fact-based CO2 cal­cu­la­ti­on is an important part of IKEA’s sus­taina­bi­li­ty stra­tegy. Pre­set cal­cu­la­ti­ons only give avera­ge values, so fact-based tools should be used to get a rea­li­stic cal­cu­la­ti­on of the car­bon foot­print. IKEA aims to fur­ther deve­lop mul­ti­mo­da­li­ty in order to find even more sus­tainable solu­ti­ons. A pre­re­qui­si­te for this is dyna­mic trans­port chains and a cor­re­spon­ding orga­nis­ed con­stant exch­an­ge of data. Coope­ra­ti­on with part­ners who share the same values is cen­tral to this.

Multimodality – On the needs of the economy – Migros

Rai­ner Deutsch­mann, Head of Safe­ty & Trans­port, is com­mit­ted to a sus­tainable sup­p­ly chain at Migros. The focus is on mul­ti­mo­dal goods logi­stics that com­bi­ne dif­fe­rent means of trans­port such as rail, truck, auto­no­mous dri­ving and Cargo Sous Ter­rain (CST). Tog­e­ther with eco­no­mie­su­is­se, VAP, Astag and IG DH, the role that the various means of trans­port should play in sus­tainable freight logi­stics is being work­ed out. Alt­hough Migros is fun­da­men­tal­ly oppo­sed to sub­si­dies, a limi­t­ed sub­s­idy in the area of tech­no­lo­gy trans­fer is advo­ca­ted as long as it does not distort com­pe­ti­ti­on and the bene­fits reach the cus­to­mer. In order to make goods logi­stics more sus­tainable, the focus is on redu­cing the num­ber of kilo­me­t­res dri­ven and incre­asing auto­ma­ti­on. Good mul­ti­mo­da­li­ty requi­res a com­ple­te rede­sign of the rail­way. CST is in the imple­men­ta­ti­on phase and is alre­a­dy well advan­ced. Switzerland’s lar­gest warehouse in Ebi­kon also ser­ves as a test site for auto­no­mous dri­ving. For trucks, seve­ral drive tech­no­lo­gies are still being inves­ti­ga­ted, such as bio­gas, elec­tric or H2. In order to sel­ect the most effi­ci­ent means of tra­vel with the most sui­ta­ble drive, Migros eva­lua­tes data from GPS tracks. Rai­ner Deutschmann’s com­mit­ment shows that com­pa­nies can and must live up to their respon­si­bi­li­ty towards the envi­ron­ment. Coope­ra­ti­on with various part­ners and the use of new tech­no­lo­gies are key suc­cess factors.

Multimodality – On the needs of business – Post Office

Titus Büt­ler shed light on mul­ti­mo­da­li­ty in Swiss Post’s trans­ports and the needs of its cus­to­mers, who expect fast, relia­ble and afforda­ble deli­veries. Swiss Post stri­ves to meet these needs by ensu­ring fre­quent and relia­ble trans­port, offe­ring com­pe­ti­ti­ve pri­ces and pro­vi­ding important data. There are 45 pos­tal trains daily with a punc­tua­li­ty rate of 94.4%. Howe­ver, the truck is about 25–40% fas­ter from ramp to ramp com­pared to the train, even if the truck still has to pile up the goods. This has led to a decli­ne in the rail share. Nevert­hel­ess, Swiss Post con­ti­nues to rely on rail and is the­r­e­fo­re try­ing to build infra­struc­tu­re to speed up rail trans­port, such as let­ter cen­tres with ramp tracks and its own rail ter­mi­nals (kV) at the three large par­cel cen­tres. Since Swiss Post has to ful­fil a basic ser­vice man­da­te, the acce­le­ra­ti­on of rail trans­ports must also be sup­port­ed in the frame­work con­di­ti­ons. Approa­ches for this are qua­li­fied express rou­tes, prio­ri­ti­sa­ti­on of time-cri­ti­cal freight traf­fic next to pas­sen­ger trains (key words: prio­ri­ty depar­tu­re of the fast goods train befo­re the sub­ur­ban train at the node), acce­le­ra­ti­on of shun­ting work inclu­ding brake tests and the use of fixed bi-modal drive compositions.

Modernisation of freight transport in Switzerland and Europe through multimodality

Jür­gen Maier has sum­ma­ri­sed facts on the moder­ni­sa­ti­on of freight trans­port in Switz­er­land and Euro­pe through mul­ti­mo­da­li­ty on the basis of infor­ma­ti­on from the umbrel­la orga­ni­sa­ti­on UIP – INTERNATIONAL UNION OF WAGON KEEPERS. Sur­veys show that mul­ti­mo­dal logi­stics are in demand and that rail is regard­ed by poli­ti­ci­ans as the back­bone of mul­ti­mo­dal freight trans­port. Howe­ver, for rail to turn this oppor­tu­ni­ty into rea­li­ty, a Euro­pe-wide sys­tem chan­ge is neces­sa­ry. Espe­ci­al­ly in WLV, the pro­ces­ses and orga­ni­sa­ti­on have remain­ed unch­an­ged for 100 years. A holi­stic view is requi­red that includes ports, modu­lar sys­tems, digi­tal plat­forms, intel­li­gent infra­struc­tu­re, digi­tal net­wor­king in the train net­work, con­sis­tent spa­ti­al plan­ning and inte­gra­ti­on into city logi­stics. The future is digi­tal, and the tech­no­lo­gi­cal­ly inno­va­ti­ve Digi­tal Auto­ma­tic Cou­pler (DAC) pro­ject, which is curr­ent­ly being tes­ted by wagon kee­pers and freight rail­ways, is a key step in this direction.

Modernisierung des Güterverkehrs in der Schweiz und Europa durch Multimodalität

Jür­gen Maier hat anhand von Infor­ma­tio­nen der Dach­or­ga­ni­sa­ti­on UIP – INTERNATIONAL UNION OF WAGON KEEPERS Fak­ten zur Moder­ni­sie­rung des Güter­ver­kehrs in der Schweiz und Euro­pa durch Mul­ti­mo­da­li­tät zusam­men­ge­fasst. Umfra­gen zei­gen, dass eine mul­ti­mo­da­le Logis­tik gefragt ist und die Schie­ne in der Poli­tik als Rück­grat des mul­ti­mo­da­len Güter­ver­kehrs betrach­tet wird. Damit die Bahn diese Chan­ce in die Rea­li­tät umset­zen kann, ist aller­dings ein euro­pa­wei­ter Sys­tem­wech­sel not­wen­dig. Vor allem im WLV sind die Pro­zes­se und die Orga­ni­sa­ti­on seit 100 Jahre unver­än­dert. Eine ganz­heit­li­che Betrach­tung ist erfor­der­lich, die Häfen, modu­la­re Sys­te­me, digi­ta­le Platt­for­men, intel­li­gen­te Infra­struk­tur, digi­ta­le Ver­net­zung im Zugs­ver­band, kon­se­quen­te Raum­pla­nung und Inte­gra­ti­on in die City-Logis­tik ein­schliesst. Die Zukunft ist digi­tal, und das tech­no­lo­gi­sche inno­va­ti­ve Pro­jekt “Digi­tal Auto­ma­tic Cou­pler (DAC)”, das der­zeit von Wagen­hal­tern und Güter­bah­nen getes­tet wird, ist weg­wei­send. The “C” in DAC can also stand for “con­nec­ted”. Auto­ma­ted and net­work­ed sys­tems are neces­sa­ry for a thri­ving eco­no­my and socie­ty in the future. Jür­gen Maier empha­si­s­es that coope­ra­ti­on at the poli­ti­cal, stra­te­gic, ope­ra­tio­nal and tech­ni­cal levels is important to achie­ve the goals.

Panel discussion

In the panel dis­cus­sion that fol­lo­wed, there was agree­ment that for the WLV to exist, its com­pre­hen­si­ve reor­ga­ni­sa­ti­on is neces­sa­ry, as was also made clear in the con­sul­ta­ti­on respon­ses on the fur­ther deve­lo­p­ment of freight trans­port. It was men­tio­ned in pas­sing that this poli­ti­cal deba­te was initia­ted by VAP Pre­si­dent Josef Ditt­li with his moti­on and that the VAP has con­tri­bu­ted a lot to the industry’s united stand on this issue. The aspect of an over­all visi­on that includes the topics of ener­gy and food poli­cy was inte­res­t­ing. In sur­face freight trans­port there is no modal shift tar­get, there is a free choice of trans­port mode. This makes it all the more important to make rail trans­port more attrac­ti­ve in order to deve­lop a com­pe­ti­ti­ve alter­na­ti­ve and sup­ple­ment to road trans­port, becau­se the road would not be able to absorb the loss of all WLV. The DAK offers a first step towards incre­asing effi­ci­en­cy and thus offers an ine­vi­ta­ble pre­re­qui­si­te for the fun­da­men­tal trans­for­ma­ti­on of WLV.

There was also a deba­te on whe­ther trans­port always has to be fas­ter and how to recon­ci­le the com­pe­ti­ti­ve advan­ta­ge of fast trans­port with sus­tainable logi­stics and an ali­gned sup­p­ly chain. The par­ti­ci­pan­ts agreed that all stake­hol­ders invol­ved must par­ti­ci­pa­te in a net­work­ed rede­sign to find a sus­tainable solu­ti­on for the future. The dis­cus­sion ended with the con­clu­si­on that prio­ri­ti­sa­ti­on, reduc­tion of pro­cess inef­fi­ci­en­ci­es and digi­tal net­wor­king are the keys to on-time, low-cost and fast delivery.

The future of (rail) logistics

With the Fede­ral Mobi­li­ty Infra­struc­tu­re Act, the fede­ral govern­ment plans to crea­te a public data plat­form to sim­pli­fy mul­ti­mo­dal solu­ti­ons and net­work all the play­ers invol­ved. In the after­noon, spea­k­ers from the fede­ral govern­ment, aca­de­mia and busi­ness high­ligh­ted in their pre­sen­ta­ti­ons how the fede­ral govern­ment is approa­ching the topic and what requi­re­ments the ship­ping indus­try has for multimodality.

The future of logistics

The pre­sen­ta­ti­on by Dr. Mat­thi­as Prandt­stet­ter dealt with the future of logi­stics and the need to act to achie­ve cli­ma­te neu­tra­li­ty. It was stres­sed that just swit­ching to e‑trucks is not enough and alter­na­ti­ve logi­stics solu­ti­ons must be used. Rail should be estab­lished as a real alter­na­ti­ve to road, as it is more ener­gy effi­ci­ent and allows for strong bund­ling. Syn­chro­mo­dal trans­ports were pre­sen­ted as the con­cept of the future, where ships and rail­ways form the basic sup­p­ly and trucks serve as fee­ders and back-up solu­ti­ons. Trans­port decis­i­ons are made in real time and by the sys­tem, simi­lar to the digi­tal inter­net, which is cal­led the phy­si­cal inter­net. The importance for the rail­ways lies in digi­ta­li­sa­ti­on, relia­bi­li­ty and fle­xi­bi­li­ty, as well as the equi­va­lence of freight and pas­sen­ger transport.

Federal law on the federal mobility data infrastructure

Moni­ka Zosso holds the co-lea­der­ship of the Direc­to­ra­te Busi­ness Sec­tion as well as the pro­ject manage­ment “Data for an effi­ci­ent mobi­li­ty sys­tem” at the Fede­ral Office of Trans­port. In her pre­sen­ta­ti­on, she intro­du­ced the Fede­ral Mobi­li­ty Data Infra­struc­tu­re Act (MODIG). Mobi­li­ty data is to be con­side­red as a sys­tem-rele­vant infra­struc­tu­re to make the mobi­li­ty sys­tem more effi­ci­ent, to satis­fy indi­vi­du­al mobi­li­ty needs, to ope­ra­te infra­struc­tures more effi­ci­ent­ly and to pro­mo­te inno­va­tions. MODIG shall faci­li­ta­te inno­va­ti­ve solu­ti­ons for all actors in the mobi­li­ty eco­sys­tem and enable the spa­ti­al data infra­struc­tu­re for mobi­li­ty. The Natio­nal Data Net­wor­king Infra­struc­tu­re Mobi­li­ty (NADIM) sup­ports the ope­ra­ti­on and fur­ther deve­lo­p­ment of MODI and pro­vi­des tech­ni­cal sup­port, stan­dar­di­s­a­ti­on, expert sup­port, con­so­li­da­ti­on and inte­gra­ti­on of data. This solu­ti­on is pro­vi­ded by the state wit­hout any com­mer­cial bene­fit being sought. Pos­si­ble use cases in the field of logi­stics are trans­port and route plan­ning for all modes of trans­port, wher­eby an appli­ca­ti­on for this should be pro­vi­ded by the indus­try. Exch­an­ge with the freight sec­tor is neces­sa­ry and desi­ra­ble for this.

CT4.0 – Digital data hub for combined transport

Chris­toph Büch­ner, Co-Direc­tor at DX Inter­mo­dal in Frank­furt, was plea­sed to be able to show an inno­va­ti­on from Ger­ma­ny, as the EU nor­mal­ly looks rather envious­ly at Switz­er­land. His pre­sen­ta­ti­on on the topic of KV4.0 dealt with the goal of the Fede­ral Minis­try of Digi­tal Affairs and Trans­port BMVD to crea­te a com­mon data hub for the exch­an­ge of data within the inter­mo­dal sup­p­ly chain. The KV4.0 data hub is inten­ded to enable an end-to-end infor­ma­ti­on chain and trans­pa­ren­cy so that the data is unders­tood by ever­yo­ne in the same way, and to avoid digi­tal iso­la­ted solu­ti­ons. The data hub sup­ports various mes­sa­ge types and is mar­ke­ted by DX Inter­mo­dal GmbH and is inter­na­tio­nal­ly posi­tio­ned with pro­ject part­ners. Curr­ent­ly, 16 play­ers are alre­a­dy con­nec­ted to the plat­form and are test­ing it. It is a data hub, not a plat­form, and DXI has no access to the data. The KV4.0 pro­ject is a pro­mi­sing step towards the digi­ta­li­sa­ti­on of inter­mo­dal sup­p­ly chains and can con­tri­bu­te to redu­cing the com­pe­ti­ti­ve dis­ad­van­ta­ges of com­bi­ned trans­port com­pared to road haulage.

New inno­va­ti­on approa­ches from prac­ti­ce – unfort­u­na­te­ly drop­ped out. Jens Engel­mann made a spon­ta­neous input on opti­mi­sed trans­port opti­ons with arti­fi­ci­al intelligence.

Panel discussion

In the con­clu­ding panel dis­cus­sion, the afternoon’s topics were dis­cus­sed in grea­ter depth, in par­ti­cu­lar the importance of plan­ning data and real-time data in the future as well as the con­cept of the phy­si­cal inter­net. Here, goods inde­pendent­ly find their way through an inter­mo­dal trans­port net­work, which redu­ces empty runs and enables bet­ter uti­li­sa­ti­on of capa­ci­ties. Stan­dar­di­s­a­ti­on on an EU-wide level was also dis­cus­sed to achie­ve har­mo­ni­sa­ti­on of lan­guage in data plat­forms and enable net­work opti­mi­sa­ti­on with AI. One par­ti­ci­pant stres­sed that AI is not intel­li­gent, but that the algo­rithm must have the right data and defi­ni­ti­ons to achie­ve good results. Data secu­ri­ty was also an important aspect, with data sove­reig­n­ty always remai­ning with the sen­der of the data in the models pre­sen­ted. The pos­si­bi­li­ties that arise with digi­ta­li­sa­ti­on, the cor­rect hand­ling of data and arti­fi­ci­al intel­li­gence are also very great for trans­port logistics.

Summary of the Forum and Farewell

At the end of the forum, Dr. Frank Fur­rer sum­ma­ri­sed the fin­dings of the day. The cus­to­mers have shown that rail is not folk­lo­re, but a pos­si­ble instru­ment to achie­ve envi­ron­men­tal and sup­p­ly poli­cy goals. The self-image of the mem­bers of the VAP is to pro­mo­te the shift of indus­try to rail. The VAP advo­ca­tes for bet­ter frame­work con­di­ti­ons in poli­tics and for sim­pli­fi­ca­ti­on of the often unneces­s­a­ri­ly com­pli­ca­ted regu­la­ted rail­way sys­tem in its expert advice to its mem­bers. A more dyna­mic world demands adap­ta­ble trans­port chains and red­un­dant approa­ches to meet needs. For this, rail freight, which has remain­ed unch­an­ged for the last 100 years, needs a fun­da­men­tal rede­sign. We need net­wor­king of all modes of trans­port, inclu­ding under­ground and across bor­ders. For the future, trans­port logi­stics needs a mobi­li­ty eco­sys­tem that enables data exch­an­ge and net­wor­king. The chall­enge here is har­mo­nis­ed inter­faces. Two years ago, the VAP sub­mit­ted a fun­ding appli­ca­ti­on for the SGV data plat­form, which was rejec­ted, citing MODIG. Howe­ver, it should not be over­loo­ked that the pro­ject was deve­lo­ped for pas­sen­ger trans­port and that, for exam­p­le, no trucks are yet plan­ned on MODIG. The VAP wants to bring goods onto the rail­way. To achie­ve this, the rail­way must per­form well, satis­fy­ing all pro­vi­ders, cus­to­mers and poli­ti­ci­ans, in coope­ra­ti­on and com­pe­ti­ti­on, using the capa­ci­ties in a tar­ge­ted way. It makes sense to start small but think big.

We look back on a suc­cessful Freight Trans­port Forum, where mee­ting and exchan­ging ideas was not negle­c­ted either.