The eighth International Physical Internet Conference (IPIC) focused on the future of global freight and logistics industry. Researchers of the two ERTICO-coordinated projects 5G-LOGINNOV and FENIX made a valuable contribution to the Conference and were present in the virtual exhibition area.
ERTICO and its two coordinated projects were delighted to be proud sponsors of the 2021 IPIC conference, organised by ALICE – the European Technology Platform ALICE and ERTICO Partner ICCS – the Institute of Communication and Computer Systems.
With two of its flagship projects in transport and logistics, ERTICO presented its latest findings to over 400 international participants, including top-notch speakers from the industry, international institutions, the research community, policymakers, standardisation committees, PhD students and other key actors in the transport, supply chain and logistics community.
5G and data were at the core of the sessions organised by 5G-LOGINNOV and FENIX, in the framework of optimising and maintaining operations in ports and logistics hubs and using data to not only provide information on the number of transport users but also to measure the success of the policies and strategies. The coordinator of the two projects, Dr Eusebiu Catana, answered a few questions on the importance of physical internet and data in logistics.
How important is the role of data in logistics?
Data represents the new kind of “fuel” in transport & logistics for the 21st century. Any application aims to utilise data exchange and innovative logistics services enabled through the FENIX federation ecosystem in order to support LSPs and shippers through various use cases such as:
- Publishing capacity and demand data for freight transport carriers
- Publishing of warehousing capacity supply data
- Viewing and search of warehousing capacity supply data
- Viewing and search of road freight transport capacity data
- Road freight transport data capacity supply-demand matching
- Data analytics
How are FENIX and 5G-LOGINNOV using data and for which scope?
The FENIX and 5G-LOGINNOV projects will bring a novel paradigm in the transport & logistics sector. By building a new type of data-driven services, the two projects will develop a new data-based business market. The high-tech SMEs and start-ups will become key players in the data monetisation landscape, bringing creativity, agile and quick development of digital information and a pragmatic business scale.
What barriers can digitalisation overcome in the logistics sector?
Almost 30% of journeys in logistics are performed by empty trucks. In addition, non-empty trucks travel on average half-empty. This results in underutilised transport capacities, and thus, lower efficiency for LSPs and users. There are barriers associated with fragmentation in matching the demand and supply for freight transport services, as well as with the lack of horizontal collaboration. Digitalisation in the logistics sector will contribute to a collaborative environment based on data exchange and innovative logistics services enabled through the FENIX federation, in order to support LSPs and shippers through cargo demand/supply matching, quotation/booking management, paperless transport (eCMR), cargo tracing and proof of delivery and corridor analytics to support policymakers.
Another barrier is that there is currently no full end to end visibility, as real time information exists in isolated IT architectures. Through a FENIX federation environment, this barrier can be overcome and time-critical aspects can be met.
Make sure to follow the two projects on social media!
The FENIX PPT slides, presented at IPIC2021 can be found here.
5G-LOGINNOV Twitter and LinkedIn
Information on the dedicated session of 5G-LOGINNOV can be found here.
