Challenges
The Transport & Logistics (T&L) sector plays a critical role in the international trade of goods, where according to Eurostat statistics (2018), the EU is accounting for 15% of the total trade in goods. Even with the advent of the pandemic in 2020, the necessary shipping of goods on a national and international level, showcased its importance and criticality for the modern way of life, while its resilience was put to the test due to the unusual load of day-to-day shipments, the interruption of the usual supply chains and the significant restrictions imposed on (inter)national travels.
The FOR-FREIGHT (Flexible, multi-mOdal and Robust FREIGHt Transport) is an EU-funded Innovation Action project that aims to maximise the utilisation of multimodal freight transport capacity, achieve competitive sustainability with higher levels of efficiency, and reduce the average cost of freight transport through the development of novel solutions and their integration with legacy logistics systems. This will enable more effective and sustainable management of goods and freight flows in airports, ports, inland terminals and various logistics nodes, taking into account the requirements of all involved stakeholders, and accounting for economic, environmental and social aspects.
Project Objectives
The FOR-FREIGHT solutions will target the end-to-end optimization of multimodal/multi-stakeholder logistics processes and improved access to transhipment services through the following Unique Value Propositions:
Real-time, door-to-door tracking across stakeholders’ domains and management systems (elimination of information silos) with global geo-location and status monitoring & control of Intermodal Transport Units (ITUs).
Decision Support Systems (DSS) for the optimization of resource utilization (labour, vehicles, equipment) using advanced Artificial Intelligence (AI)/Machine Learning (ML) techniques and Digital Twin concepts.
Increased resilience of the multimodal logistics chain against large-scale disruptive events (e.g., pandemic), based on proactive planning, heterogeneous data analytics, etc., and increased security of information exchange based on Blockchain technology.
Increased sector sustainability through the adoption of a carbon footprint assessment framework and the utilization of public transport networks (e.g., subway) leading to reduced GHG emissions.
Role in the Project
eBOS’ technical role in the project is to significantly contribute to the design, development and integration of the User Interface, thus enabling the user-friendly interfacing of the users with the FOR-FREIGHT platform, provide insightful dashboards for the monitoring and control of the logistics process, as well as to support all use case stakeholders during the field trials. eBOS will collaborate with the consortium partners to ensure that all developed solutions in the trial sites are compatible and have the proper interfaces for interworking with the FOR-FREIGHT platform, as well as guarantee the suitability of the developed solutions with the envisioned use cases.
Apart from designing and maintaining the project’s website, eBOS will contribute to the elaboration of the FOR-FREIGHT business models and sustainability plans. eBOS will also lead the Quality Assurance of the project safeguarding the deliverables’ quality and Risk Management responsibility, as well as the dissemination and communication activities tasks.
Consortium
Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.
