Projects at the “transport services” layer

CREAM (Customer-driven Rail-freight services on a European mega-corridor based on Advanced business and operating Models)

The CREAM project was set up to respond to the increasing demand for rail-based logistic systems and to support the implementation of change in the European railway area, initiated by the European legislation. Against the benchmarking business models of logistic service providers, CREAM has defined advanced customer-driven business models for railway undertakings and intermodal operators. CREAM has analysed the operational and logistic prerequisites for developing, setting up and demonstrating seamless rail freight and intermodal rail /road and rail/short sea/road services on a Trans-European mega-corridor between the Benelux countries and Turkey/Greece. On this basis the CREAM partners developed different business cases which were integrated into an innovative corridor-related freight service concept; topics include (1) Innovative rail-based supply chains including intelligent rail and multimodal operation models, (2) a quality management system, (3) Interoperability and border crossing, (4) Integrated telematic solutions for train control, tracking & tracing of shipments and customer information, (5) Rail logistics for temperature- controlled cargoes and (5) New technologies for the transport of unaccompanied semi-trailers in intermodal transport.

As stated in the final project report, rail freight transport has benefited from these improvements by shorter transit times, improved transport quality and an increase in the annual transport performance of more than 1 billion tonne-kilometres. The CREAM project was performed in the period between 2007-2011; the consortium comprised 30 partners from 13 countries - including railway companies, the International Union of Railways UIC, transport operators, technology providers, research institutes and consulting firms.

The project results, that have been considered as most relevant for Logistics Networks, are

• Chain management: The management of the entire process chain, including loading/unloading of trains, the short-haul train runs between different sidings and the marshalling yard and the main train runs to connected European corridors, is called “chain management”. Its primary objective is to increase the punctuality particularly of intermodal rail freight services on the local (harbour) line and to conduct related installations to effectively use resources (locomotives, train drivers), terminal capacity and rail infrastructure capacity (corridor rail lines, shunting yard) and thus increase the quality of the entire rail product. In the context of CREAM, the chain management has been developed and implemented in the Port of Rotterdam and a completely new railway line, dedicated for freight trains, the “Betuweroute” between Rotterdam and Venlo.

• Interoperable traction schemes:Interoperability is a key issue of the European transport policy which aims at promoting a single European rail area. CREAM has searched for opportunities to set up interoperable services. The investigations have shown that interoperable operations are often hampered e. g. by long border station stopping times, long and inefficient turn-around times of locomotives due to low frequency of transports, insufficient availability of interoperable locomotives,

long-lasting homologation procedures for locomotives and inappropriate market conditions in some countries. The conditions are in general not appropriate to operate long-distance train services over multiple countries with just one locomotive. However, with the help of real uses cases, it could be demonstrated that it is favourable to reduce the number of operational interfaces and to introduce interoperability section wise, especially feasible on bi-national routes.

• Improved border crossing procedures:One of the major issues to reduce the overall transport time of rail freight services in South-East Europe is the optimisation of border processes and related border stopping times. Within the research works for this topic, 20 railway border crossings have been analysed on the CREAM corridor, taking into account the legal and technical framework. To boost the level of cooperation and to optimise the interfaces between the interacting parties at the border, the CREAM project initiated bilateral initiatives at seven concrete border crossings; thereby integrating railway undertakings, infrastructure managers, authorities and relevant customers to develop improved procedures, which were applied in a demonstration phase of the project. The improvement activities have been basically focussing on implementing electronic data exchange methods, procedures for advance notifications of train arrivals (pre-information) and on optimising the process organisation within the relevant border stations.

• Telematics and train monitoring: In line with increasing information needs in the logistics sector, rail transport customers call for efficient tracking and tracing solutions. In correspondence to these needs CREAM analysed different technical solutions based on GPS or simple tracking technologies and evaluated their applicability on the CREAM corridor. The results have been integrated in a comprehensive information management concept. In this context, a new IT system “Train Monitor” has been developed and implemented. This system can be regarded as a virtual rail transport management centre, connecting all relevant partners. The IT system “Train Monitor” closes existing information gaps by integrating train operation data from numerous sources (including GPS), showing automatically calculated values for the estimated time of arrival (ETA) and providing a train data base for quality statistics and operation analyses.

• Multimodal short sea – rail transport concept:Turkish trucks travel up to 7.000 km in each round-trip on their journey to and from West European countries. Ekol Logistics has developed an effective and environmentally friendly solution to this problem. A new intermodal transport system which reduced the share of land transport to only 2.000 km. Originating from the use of ferry services between the Turkish ports in Istanbul, Izmir and Mersin and the Italian Port of Trieste, the multimodal concept exhibits an innovative combination of these ferry boat connections on one side and a shuttle-train connection between Trieste and Worms (Germany), on the other side.

GET SERVICE (Service Platform for Green European Transportation)

The main objective of the project was to develop a Service Platform for Green European Transportation (GET). The GET SERVICE platform shall provide transportation planners with a tool to plan transport routes more efficiently and to respond quickly to unexpected events during transportation.

• enable aggregation of information from the raw data that is shared between partners and transportation information providers;

• facilitate planning and re-planning of transport based on that real-time information; and

• facilitate real-time monitoring and control of transportation, as it is being carried out by own resources and partner resources.

The service platform for Green European Transportation provides transportation planners and drivers of transportation vehicles with the means to plan, re-plan and control transportation routes efficiently and in a manner that reduces CO2 emission. The GET SERVICE platform shall

1. enable improved transportation and route planning, by incorporating transportation- and logistics- related tasks, such as transfer of goods and administrative tasks, into the planning;
2. facilitate more accurate transportation and route planning, by using real-time information from multiple information sources;
3. facilitate quick effectuation of changes to transportation plans, including the execution of necessary transportation-related tasks, such as (de-)reservation of necessary resources and unloading of already loaded freight;
4. enable holistic planning, where transportation routes and placement of transportation resources is planned jointly to optimize resource usage.

To achieve these objectives, the GET SERVICE platform was developed, with subsystems for information aggregation, real-time planning, transportation control and transportation service development. The GET SERVICE platform contributes to the state-of-the-art by providing real-time transportation planning algorithms, a transportation-specific service development subsystem, transportation control and reconfiguration mechanisms; and automated real-time information aggregation mechanisms.

INTERFACE (Improvement of intermodal terminal freight operations at border crossing terminal)

Main goal of the INTERFACE project was to identify and test innovative solutions to improve border-crossing terminal operations between the EU and CEEC countries as well as inside the EU. This should contribute to reducing customs waiting times, increase of safety, harmonising regulations and to develop additional functions to accommodate border-crossing terminals. Within the project, three demonstration sites were foreseen to test and validate solutions in a “real environment”, also allowing for adoption to other sites. INTERFACE focused not only on isolated solutions but also on combined measures stressing their potential at different levels (technical, economical, organisational, etc.).

The specific measurable objectives of INTERFACE were the following:

1. To provide an inventory and an assessment of relevant cases on the borders inside the EU (France- Spain, alpine crossing), between the EU and (former) Accession Countries (Czech Republic-Austria, Finland-Lithuania) as well as between EU and Russia;
2. To identify dedicated concepts and combination of concepts limiting or eliminate the lack of border- crossing terminals’ interoperability and interconnectivity;
3. To analyse, test and validate the developed concepts (a) in a theoretical view by modelling and assessing the intermodal potential in order to measure the dimensions of the identified concepts and (b) through running of demonstrations validating the concepts in a real environment;
4. To produce recommendations and an implementation plan for all levels of the decision-making and for the different intervention areas in the logistic chain.

Innovative solutions implemented in INTERFACE were operational optimisations, improvement of data exchange, providing real-time information and improvement of transhipment processes. An important KPI was the reduction of border-crossing times.

LessThanWagonLoad

LessThanWagonLoad had the objective to develop a specialised logistics cluster for the chemical industry in the Port of Antwerp in order to shift transport volumes from road to rail to reduce CO2 emissions. In order to reach the goal, the following project activities were carried out:

• Development of a less than wagon load concept: setting up a competitive door-to-door transport concept for LTL (less than truck load) freight volumes by using rail instead of road for the long-haul transport;

• Design and build a prototype of an automated system⁶³ for loading and unloading rail wagons: inspired by already existing automated truck loading systems, the new solution was intended to decrease costs for transhipment to rail to make the ‘less than wagon load’ offer more competitive;

• Identification of new added value rail services for the chemical industry focussing on (a) a multimodal freight village with a cross-docking warehouse for pallets, (b) specialised parking, repair and picking services, (c) advanced cleaning services for chemical rail wagons, trucks and tank containers, and (d) improved rail connections by combining conventional and intermodal freight volumes.

• Development of governance and business models: for the proposed new services potential markets were assessed, and detailed business cases were built to demonstrate the potential benefit for the stakeholders involved. In addition, governance models and financing schemes were worked out for the most promising new services;

• Assessment of the environmental performance improvement for the logistics cluster: given that the proposed optimisations contribute to a modal shift from road to rail, a decrease of the carbon footprint of the Antwerp chemical logistics cluster should be achieved.

NEWS (Development of a next generation European inland waterway ship and logistics system)

The NEWS project conceived a new vessel type to minimise carbon dioxide emissions from container transport and make transport links across continental Europe more accessible, addressing bottlenecks along the major freight route Rhine/Meuse-Main-Danube. The project had two main research focus areas:

• Developing and validating a novel container ship (hull) with the capability to carry three layers of containers stacked and four side-by-side on at least 80% of the European Inland Waterways, with the deckhouse and a liftable wheelhouse in the front, with a completely new aft ship design for optimised propulsion efficiency and resistance efficiency and with Diesel- or gas-electric propulsion for clean and economical operation

• Developing a logistics system based on the novel container ship. This part of the project is particularly relevant for the Logistics Networks cloud. It contained the following main components:

Although the technical and logistic feasibility of the new vessel concept could be validated, the cost calculation showed that return on investment would currently be too high to make the concept commercially viable. Therefore, no large-scale demonstration or regular implementation took place.

NOVIMAR (NOVel Inland waterway and MARitime transport concepts)

The NOVIMAR project aimed to adjust waterborne transport in such a way that it can make optimal use of existing short-sea, sea-river and inland waterways. The basic idea is the so-called “vessel train concept”. The vessel train consists of a manned lead vessel, followed by several vessels of various types and/or sizes with reduced crew level. With regard to Logistics Network, the following topics of the project are of interest:

·         Composition & design of the vessel train: normally, vessels vary in type, size, and technical specifications. NOVIMAR assessed economic and logistic viability of the various compositions and researched new ship designs including optimised cargo handling systems;

·         Navigating and manoeuvring the vessel train: the vessel train is navigated and manoeuvred by the crew on board of the leader vessel. For this, NOVIMAR developed a user-interface for the control of the course and speed of vessels participating in the vessel train, supported by a communication system between these vessels. In addition, an overlay on the navigation chart with detailed information about water depth was developed.

·         Transport system: the waterborne transport system included both the sea and inland waterways, including locks and bridges, and deep-sea and inland ports and terminals. The vehicles were sea, sea- river and inland vessels. Operations dealt with the way the vessels were operated and the proceduresset for this purpose including financing, legalities, and policies. NOVIMAR assessed the viability of the vessel train in the total transport system by use of simulation.

·         Business concept of the vessel train: The business concept of the vessel train organizer was a plan for how revenues would be generated, and a profitable company would be developed. For this purpose, all parameters of the transport system were included in a chain cost model. Therefore, this model allowed calculating the generalised transport chain costs for different transport chains, including modal competition from road and intermodal rail transport.

In February 2020, model scale tests for the vessel train concept were performed at the laboratory of DST Entwicklungszentrum für Schiffstechnik und Transportsysteme in Duisburg. The full-scale demonstration of the Vessel Train concept took place in March 2021 on the Haringvliet near the village of Willemstad (the Netherlands). These tests proved the feasibility of the vessel train concept in real life.

RETRACK (Reorganisation of transport networks by advanced rail freight concepts)

The RETRACK partners have taken the initiative to design, develop and implement a new and innovative trans- European rail freight service concept, starting with the rail corridor Rotterdam to Constanza (Romania) and investing potential extensions to the Black Sea area and Turkey.

The RETRACK project aimed at generating a significant modal shift of cargo from road to rail and to create an effective and scalable rail freight corridor between high demand regions in Western Europe and new high growth regions in Central and Eastern Europe. Important issues, tackled in this context were the integration of strategic port hubs (to provide access to the large goods repositories and generating the necessary volumes to make rail freight transport along the corridor economically feasible) and comparable short and guaranteed door-to-door delivery times of shipments. With this new rail freight service concept, the RETRACK partners aimed at demonstrating that rail freight services on trans-European corridors can be a competitive alternative to road haulage.

The project result, that has been considered as most relevant for Logistics Networks, is a new and innovative trans-European rail freight service concept: To identify and test the possibilities and limits for this new and innovative transport concept in practice, a “demonstration train” has been operated between the hubs Köln- Eifeltor and Györ with a secondary hub established in the Rotterdam region. The RETRACK demonstration train is conceived as a “group of wagons train”, i.e. transport volumes of various customers - usually being smaller than the amount suitable for a block train - are combined into a train set. The volumes have been composed of all kinds of goods – from agricultural products and powdery bulk cargo to semi-finished products from the coal and steel industry, chemical products incl. dangerous goods as well as machine parts and containers. In 2022, the RETRACK train system is still in operation.

Smart-Rail (smart supply chain oriented rail freight services)

The SMART-RAIL project aimed to improve the freight rail services offered to the shippers by focusing on making improvements of reliability, lead time, costs, flexibility, and visibility. Solutions developed in the course of the project three were implemented and tested in three Continuous Improvement Tracks (CITs):

·         CIT 1: Wagonload train services. This CIT aims to create and validate a concept for wagon-load trains on two corridors that has proven to be most effective with the support of the stakeholders involved. This is based on the existing, promising example of a successful SWL operation (of which partners are included in the consortium) to create a European network solution to follow up and expand on these practices. Furthermore, this CIT aims to develop new cooperation models between the different stakeholders in the SWL business and introduce improved IT tools that lead to a more efficient transport offer. The corridor Lyon-Munich is targeted with a continuation to Austria, Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary.

·         CIT 2: Managing connectivity of rail with other modes; Control tower for long distance rail freight transport. This CIT aims to increase the reliability for both planned and unplanned disruptions and to increase the visibility of the supply chain. Two long distance intermodal rail connections are covered, namely UK to Poland and UK to France, Spain and Italy. As of August 2017, Control Tower Rail went into operation. For door-to-door operational corridor management, LSP Seacon has developed a monitoring dashboard and an integrated module for its transport management system (TMS).

·         CIT 3: Reliability in case of (unexpected) obstructions on the track. This CIT aims to increase the flexibility and reliability of rail freight transport within a multimodal transport system. Selected test bed for solution was the Rotterdam-Genoa corridor.

ViWaS (Viable Wagonload Production Schemes)

Single wagonload (SWL) transport is still a major component in numerous European states’ transport systems and in the logistics of different economic sectors such as steel, chemical industry and automotive. However, changing framework conditions and increasingly demanding market requirements have led to dramatic market losses and even to complete shutdown of SWL business in some countries. As this business segment has been evaluated as important for specific transports in a European co-modal transport system also in the future, significant improvements are needed. The ViWaS partners believe that for the success of SWL the following two issues might be crucial: (1) A viable SWL system is highly dependent on the critical mass. Thereby all options have to be considered to secure a high utilisation of the trains operated on the trunk lines, including a combined production with intermodal loads. (2) Only comprehensive and complementary measures are able to sustainably improve and preserve the European SWL systems in accordance with increasingly demanding market requirements. The ViWaS project has followed such a comprehensive approach; therefore, aiming at the development of (1) Market driven business models and production systems to secure the critical mass needed for SWL operations, (2) New ways for “Last mile” infrastructure design and organisation to raise cost efficiency, (3) Adapted SWL technologies to improve flexibility and equipment utilisation and (4) Advanced SWL management procedures & ICT to raise quality, reliability and cost efficiency. The applicability of these solutions and their effects have been tested on the basis of pilot business cases (by demonstrations).

The project results, that have been considered as most relevant for Logistics Networks, are

·         Simulation tool for SWL network planning: Wagon SIM is an agent-based simulation tool for SWL transport, based on the Open-Source software MatSIM. The tool models the routing of freight wagons according to the routes within the real SWL network and thus enables the development of improved SWL networks and production schemes. The model reproduces in a two-layer structure, the infrastructure and the operation of the SWL network. Therefore, it allows to model improvements in infrastructure, schedule and shunting operations.

·         Regional network of rail logistics centres: Whereas the number of small rail sidings is continuously decreasing it becomes more and more important to develop capable rail freight bundling points that also serve rail freight customers without own rail siding. ViWaS has taken up this challenge with the further development of the “Railport” concept: The core of the concept is a network of multifunctional rail logistics centres (RLC) in close neighbourhood to each other to facilitate the transhipment of a wide range of products (e.g., palletized, oversized and heavy goods, liquid and bulk goods, containerized goods). The concept is combined with a set of complementary improvement areas: (1) Efficient rail production schemes for long haul and “last mile” transport, involving the use of hybrid “last-mile” locomotives, (2) Extended logistics service profiles of rail logistics centres (e.g., enabling buffer storage / just-in-time deliver) to widen the range of potential customers (3) Improved transhipment processes and technologies within the rail logistics centre.

TIGER DEMO (Trans-Rail Integrated Goods European-Express Routes Demonstrators)⁶⁹

The TIGER DEMO project dealt with the demonstration of innovative hinterland transport concepts for reasons of economy, competitiveness, infrastructure capacity and ecology. It is the successor of the TIGER project⁷⁰, in which these new transport services had been developed and tested within the scope of pilot services. TIGER DEMO extended these pilot services to three full-scale demonstrators, located in Italy (A) and Germany (C, D):

·         Demonstrator A: Genoa Fast Corridor (GFC) had the objective of transferring containers arriving at Genoa port terminals to the inland dry port of Rivalta. Shuttle trains were operated adopting random train loading in order to speed up operations in a total industrial way. New technologies and management systems (e-seal, e-custom, e-freight, ICT etc.) as well as investments in equipment, ports and dry port infrastructures and railway signalling were introduced to make the whole operations and their control viable. Inter alia, security and customs operations are carried in Rivalta instead of Genoa port while in transit via rail. By doing so, congestion in the port of Genoa was relieved and transit time and costs were reduced.

·         Demonstrator C: Innovative Port and Hinterland Operations (iPort) dealt with hinterland transport services for the German North Sea ports. The nucleus of these concepts was (a) the consolidation volumes and (b) the composition of terminal dedicated trains in rail hubs outside the seaports. In so doing, cost- and time- consuming shunting operations within the seaports were reduced and rail infra- structure was decongested. In total, these effects improved efficiency and competitiveness of intermodal traffic against pure road transport. At the same time, the seaports became capable to increase their throughput of maritime containers.

·         Demonstrator D: Intermodal network 2015+ aimed at making a further quality step change in the inland distribution by intermodal trains. This was achieved by connecting intermodal seaport- hinterland services and inland destinations in high-capacity hubs and gateway facilities. This concept was designed to integrate also small and middle-sized terminals into the high-quality hinterland network and to combine maritime and continental volumes at the same time. By doing so, the concept increased terminal productivity and efficiency both to and from the seaports and the national/international inland terminals.