They are like moving factories: machines capable of renewing a railway track autonomously, and without nearby line closures. They are the approach to efficient railway upgrading, but they are not yet widely applied. What is stopping us? Niek Lentink, Director Operations at Swietelsky Rail Benelux has been asking this question for the last few years…. Read more ›
A next step towards paperless rail freight transport in Europe has been taken. On 12 March, the European Parliament proposed a new regulation for the digitalisation of electronic freight transport information. In simpler terms, this is to result in more harmonisation among member states that accept and apply the electronic consignment note. At the moment,… Read more ›
Cargo should find its own way to its destination, where it determines a logical next destination. It could do this autonomously, without intervention of a human. This is called self-organising logistics. A step too far? Not all all, believes Walter Kusters. In cooperation with the Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Supply Chain Planning and Optimisation firm… Read more ›
Terminal capacity in Europe is requested after a train path is allocated, while terminal access is often the bottleneck in the transport chain. An integrated offer requesting capacity on both should make rail freight more efficient. A pilot of such offer is currently carried out on the Scandanavian Meditarranean Rail Freight Corridor. Stephan Noll, Manager… Read more ›
The legislative piece that assures a harmonised intermodal regulatory framework in Europe is under fire. Although the main aim of opening up this legislation for discussion was to broaden the support for intermodal transport, it now risks moving into the opposite direction. These recent and crucial developments will be explained by the UIRR in a… Read more ›
With the US sanctions on Iran reimposed, European firms must analyse their transaction before putting it on a train to Iran. However, there are ways to deal with these limitations. Sebastiaan Bennink and Yvo Amar, both specialists in sanctions law at Wladimiroff lawyers, will explain how to do business with Iran in a workshop at… Read more ›
The nominees for the RailFreight Innovation Awards have been announced. These awards are given to the best innovative product or concept within the rail freight industry at RailTech Europe, taking place from 26 to 28 March in Utrecht, the Netherlands. The award ceremony takes place during the dinner of this event on 26 March 2019…. Read more ›
The first high-speed railway service for freight, the Swiss modal shift policy or the SBB-led project towards automated coupling; all these have in common that they are the topic of a workshop at the Freight and Terminal Forum, to be held in Utrecht, the Netherlands from 26-28 March. Over 20 workshops are spread out over… Read more ›
While some European hubs are growing in terms of freight traffic volumes, this leads to the marginalisation of some smaller, inland terminals. Truckers rather opt for the larger terminals with a high frequency of train connections. The logistics product of the smaller terminal is just not attractive enough, explained Onno de Jong, Consultant Transport &… Read more ›
If we want to achieve climate ambitions for the freight transport industry, the capacity of terminals must be doubled. This was concluded by Ad Toet, railway consultant at a webinar about terminal efficiency, held on Wednesday 27 Februari. “Currently, there is hardly any policy on terminal development, it is left up to the market. We… Read more ›
