Background & policy context
PROMIT was a European Coordination Action (CA) for intermodal freight transport which initiated, facilitated, and supported the coordination and cooperation of national and European initiatives, projects, promotion centres, technology providers, research institutes and user groups related to this most complex transport form.
Objectives
The main strategic objective of PROMIT was to contribute to a faster improvement and implementation of intermodal freight transport technologies and procedures, and to help to Promote Innovative Intermodal Freight Transport and modal shift by creating awareness of innovations, best practices and intermodal transport opportunities for potential users, as well as politicians and research community.
Additionally PROMIT aimed to:
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collect, compare and summarise available experiences and results, especially addressing intermodal logistics on East-West corridors;
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support the exchange of know-how, experiences and best practices;
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establish an active information and coordination platform for intermodal logistics;
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develop an overall promotion strategy and action plan for intermodal transport solutions.
Finally, PROMIT intended to strengthen the European intermodal transport industry as well as the intermodal transport oriented technology suppliers within their international market position.
Methodology
Starting point for the PROMIT promotion strategy matrix was the structuring of information collected and processed in PROMIT towards industrial companies in a user oriented format. This should support intermodal promotion centers in doing their work, however, also provide transport users the possibility to get direct access to information on intermodal solutions.
Due to the immense size of the intermodality domain, PROMIT has chosen a matrix organization, where the domain expertise was treated in five parallel clusters:
- Organisation and business models,
- Intermodal infrastructure and equipment,
- Information and Communication Technologies,
- Operation and services and
- Security, Safety, Legislation and Policy.
The approach followed integrated the work and the tasks from the project’s workpackages (vertical level) and the thematic clustering activities (horizontal level). The work packages ensured that PROMIT would collate, consolidate and disseminate already existing best practises, performance indicators and benchmarks, as well as national/European strategies, policies and promotion activities. This addressed in detail the national and European promotion structures as well as strengths, gaps and weaknesses of promotion measures that were a focus of PROMIT, including the implementation of exemplary real life cases of promotion measures in areas presently not addressed.
Key results
The project implementation has covered a 3-year period, where 3 Intermodal Innovation Day Conferences and at least 15 cluster Workshops have been organised in addition to the dissemination via brochures, newsletter and Internet website. PROMIT has raised synergies in the European intermodal community and contributed to policy initiatives on the national and European level that support the shift of transport from road to Intermodal transport modes.
Organization and business models
The main goal was to examine all kinds of organizational and business models within intermodal transport chains. To help contribute to the best practice handbook and the report on benchmarking, some of the key productions of Promit, a first intesive material collection on best practice cases, has been implemented.
Throughout this work, it has become clear that it is often more easier to describe the operational and technical aspects of an intermodal transport solution, than to collect information about how it was organized in detail, and which business model was used to make the service successful.
Result of this research has so far shown that sustainable solutions are only those when collaboration between chain partners is organized to share huge investments and range critical mass, while the Distrivaart model was proven to promise results.
Intermodal Infrastructures and Equipment
In addition to compiling an inventory of projects and operational solutions, the key activities have been to perform an in-depth study of the Stora Enso North European Transport Supply System(NETSS). Although Storo Enso uses a special load unit, the SECU, NETSS as a transport solution which is generic in the sense that it can carry all cargo types being transported on road, and loading and unloading performance is the state of the art.
Information and Communication Technologies
ICT is a dominant element in defining most aspects of transport. Included is a description of 11 projects demonstrating best practices in ICT applications in intermodal transport, including: the differing level of IT penetration; low compatibility of existing systems; differing standards; lack of interoperability and integration. The developed systems provided solutions that cover a wide array of services(tracking,tracing of cargo; fleet management; electronic administration procedures; advanced navigation and communication; and intermodal door - to - door management.
Operation and Services
Intermodal Transport does not always meet the market demand related to leading times, reliability, frequency, flexibility, added value services and price. The quality requirements of shippers has increased over the years. Road Transport has many advantages with regard to quality and price. Among other problems, operational and service related barriers can be the reason for not choosing intermodal transport.
Security, Safety, Legislation and Policy
The documents and data collection about intermodal transport and an inventory of the various kinds of incentives at the national level has been organized. The information collected creates a broad basis for analysis of the differences between countries of the the various european regions, determining similar or opposing strategies and discovering good common practices or extraordinary examples to sub-divide the specialized examples further.
PROMIT cluster 5 collected extensive data on national transport policies supporting intermodality through infrastructure, R&D, services, environment, taxation, legislation and transport policy. This analysis shows the many strategies available to support sustainable transport.
- Most support actions dealing with intermodal transport are directed to rail investments and connections, access to the railway system, intermodal terminals, handling equipment, inland waterway connections, and IT systems (mostly waterborne).
- Many national intermodal and combined transport R&D projects, pilots, consulting and feasibility studies have been supported.
- Services include setting up of rolling-motorway services and intermodal and combined transport services. SMEs have also been taken into consideration. The aim, more or less, has been to shift freight from road to rail and waterways.
- Environmental interests concern replacement and retrofitting of diesel engines in inland navigation, CO2 reduction and tax-relief programmes that give a direct fiscal advantage to companies that invest in environmentally friendly equipment and renewable energy.
- Typical taxation measures are rail track price reduction, tax exemption in pre- and on- carriage, and refunds for vehicles or boxes being used in combined transport.
- Typical legislative measures are exemptions from weekend driving restrictions for pre- and end- haul carriers and exemptions from maximum weight.
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Transport policy support deals with many types of actions such as scanning modal shift potential, national or regional transport plans, national plans for logistics centres and freight villages, programs for developmental support for combined transport, development schemes for combined traffic, logistics competence centres, and integration of rail into European transport corridors.
Technical implications of results
none
Policy implications
To further support promotion activities, an information system should be developed, as specified in the PROMIT project.
The European Commission’s initiatives the “Freight Transport Logistics Action Plan”, “European Maritime Transport Space without Barriers”, and the establishment of an e-Freight roadmap go a long way in providing an appropriate “soft” infrastructure to support intermodal transport.
Regarding the physical infrastructure for intermodal transport, there is much to be done before generic, competitive solutions may be achieved. If the current philosophy of special solutions for each operator is allowed to continue, intermodality on a European level will be hard to achieve. New initiatives from the EU Commission are needed here, both regarding rail and waterborne transport.
