Intermodal transport (i.e. one transport unit using a combination of modes) is recognised as an important option when seeking to influence modal split towards more sustainable modes such as rail, short sea shipping and inland waterways. However, road transport remains indispensable and incentives and methods must be found which contribute to an optimum modal mix for every type of transport. There are a number of commercial, technical and organisational obstacles to overcome in this process of combining a number of transport services to an efficient transport chain. On a general level, there is too little transport chain thinking. Integrated transport management requires a certain level of business integration which demands trust and in consequence often a perspective of longer term co-operation.

Information access is a key element in any competitive intermodal chain which requires some degree of interoperability between the systems of the organisations involved in the chain, but also with authorities who require reporting e.g. customs, coast guard and bodies which provide traffic information. Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SME) often find the threshold for using advanced Information Technology (IT)-based management tools still too high in term of costs and necessary know-how. Standards are too wide or inadequate for small enterprises and do not support the interaction of all parties involved.

Rapidly changing business and administrative requirements demand a high level of flexibility from the transport industry both in terms of the services offered and the management systems. Software tools and IT-services to support the management are developing, but they do not adequately serve the entire business community.

European Intermodal Research Advisory Council (EIRAC)

Launched in 2005, the European Intermodal Research Advisory Council (EIRAC) is a peer group of more than 50 high level industrial players. The EIRAC members are intermodal operators, terminal handling, freight villages, modal transport operators, forwarders, ports, equipment suppliers, cargo owners, high educational institutions, and authorities. EIRAC brings together authoritative individuals with decision making capabilities to contribute with significant advice and to influence the stakeholders in investing to innovate and change.

The EIRAC aims at the following objectives:

• Stimulate the main public stakeholders and market players in the Intermodal and Logistics domain to invest into research;
• Strengthen the potential of research results to be endorsed and used by the market;
• Provide the assessment of these results, both before and after the execution of research, including the financial conditions needed to ensure the full exploitation of the innovation;
• Ensure that its work is communicated in a professional way to the “outsiders” (i.e., non-EIRAC members, or International Parties), so that they also can benefit from the work and improve their level of information;
• Foster the participation of industrial SMEs in innovating and changing their mindset, eventually participating in research projects;
• Stimulate the implementation of indications contained in the Implementation Plan into national programmes of research, including the identification of needs for breakthrough technologies;
• Enhance the opportunities to participate to or observe EIRAC works;
• Stimulate the creation of Intermodal Advisory Councils or Technology Platforms at national level;

International Union of Combined Road-Rail Transport Companies

Created in 1970, initially in the form of a de facto association, the International Union of Combined Road-Rail Transport Companies, abbreviated as UIRR, took on the form of a co-operative limited company (s.c.r.l.) under Belgian law in 1991.

It has 19 member companies and has a working structure that is classical for a commercial company of this type, that is to say a General Meeting of Shareholders, a Board of Directors, member companies, and internal working committees or committees working in co-operation/consultation with external entities.

Effective interaction between these different organs allows UIRR s.c.r.l. to carry out effectively its exclusive role of promotion of essentially road-rail Combined Transport.

Combined Transport chain and actors
Combined Transport is the result of collaboration between different partners, essentially:

• the infrastructure managers (IMs), who put the railway network at the operators’ disposal for a fee;
• the railway undertakings (RUs), which operate rail traction services;
• the CT operators, who buy transport capacity from the RUs going from the equivalent of one isolated loading unit (distribution traffic) to the whole train; they provide about half the required wagons, the other half coming from the RUs;
• the terminal managers, who are, according to the circumstances, CT operators, RUs or local operators.
  the clients – road haulage companies, freight forwarders, logistics companies – who deliver the loading units to the departure terminal and collect them at the destination terminal.

LOGCHAIN+

LOGCHAIN+ is a Europe-wide network for promoting research and development in the field of international freight logistics technologies. It was launched in 2006 and is the successor of the EUREKA Umbrella LOGCHAIN.

As a platform for launching new cooperative research projects at the international level, the Umbrella LOGCHAIN+ has the objective of improving international freight transport within Europe through the development and optimization of continuous logistic chains between shipper and receiver.
Particularly important fields of activity of LOGCHAIN+ are:

• customised freight services
• fully interoperable infrastructure
• modular interoperable rolling stock
• impact and sustainability
• short sea shipping
• transalpine freight

The overriding political objective of LOGCHAIN+ is to shift freight traffic from Europe’s roads and highways to rail and waterways by optimising the interfaces between different forms of transportation.

FREIGHTWISE

FREIGHTWISE is an integrated project within the EU's 6th Framework Programme that aims at bringing together three different sectors:

• Transport Management: Shippers, Forwarders. Operators and Agents;
• Traffic and Infrastructure Management : Rail, Road, Sea, Inland waterways;
• Administration: Customs, Border Crossing, Hazardous Cargo, Safety and Security

The FREIGHTWISE project will support the co-operation of these sectors in order to develop and demonstrate suitable intermodal transport solutions in a range of business cases. The project shall support the complex service integration into integrated transport chains. The technical expertise in the project will focus on the development of a reference architecture for intermodal transport and the integration of relevant IT systems including legacy systems in the business cases.