ERTICO’s coordinated FENIX project recently conducted a study to determine support levels and achievable outcomes in the effort to standardize multimodal transport networks and systems. The clear message is that digitization and interoperability are preferred over inefficient and incompatible paper processes.
Study participants hailing from the European transport industry affirmed their support for digital standards across the continent, which gives weight and validity to FENIX (the European FEderated Network of Information eXchange in Logistics), a project that aims to improve the efficiency of transport and logistics processes.
Over 90% of respondents gave the role of digital standards at least four out of six stars when asked to rate the importance of improved digitization and interoperability among logistics providers and countries.
Respondents believe that an interoperable digital supply chain and standardized protocols have far-reaching benefits. These include increased transparency and efficiency because operations can be sped up, manual data entry can be avoided, and complexity and errors can be decreased, which in turn lower administrative costs and increase resilience during business disruptions.
Challenges to implementing standardization across the industry include a lack of knowledge about existing data solutions and also perceived advantages of maintaining proprietary ownership of developed software.
The study results provide the backbone for the next phase in the FENIX Network development and more detailed results can be found here on the research page of FENIX Network website.
The FENIX Network is co-financed by the Connecting Europe Facility of the European Union.
