During the presentation for the 10th International OSJD Rail Freight Conference entitled “UIC Development in Euro-Asian Business” Miklós Kopp, Director of Development for East-West Relations, gave a short overview of the economic and logistic trends in Euro-Asian business processes.
He pointed out the main elements of international cooperation which need to be developed to increase railway traffic on intercontinental corridors in the sphere of transport policy and law, technical and operational issues of interoperability and harmonisation of processes in different regions, as well as between systems 1520 and 1435.
The UIC Regional Assemblies are preparing the Strategic Vision of integration and coherence, cooperating with governments, other international organisations and financial institutions and are also preparing a certain number of regional and multi-regional projects in the fields of:
- Technology
- Operations
- Business and
- Training
At the same event, Hans Günther Kersten, UIC Freight Director, delivered a presentation entitled “Customer Expectations on Eurasian Rail Freight Corridors” in which he pointed out three essential customer expectations, namely:
- Short delivery time
- Low costs of transport
- Predictability, calculability of arrival time
In this digital age in particular, constant and predictable arrival times are of utmost importance. Production and supply logistics will be even more closely interconnected than before.
To achieve this predictability and calculability, there will be no alternative to IT based solutions. Such IT solutions will have to be interoperable throughout the Eurasian Rail Freight Corridors, not only on the territory of EU 28. For this purpose, IT experts from non-EU countries should participate in European Freight IT projects and should contribute their know-how as well. The relevant associations (UIC, OSJD…) should act as platforms for exchange and as a driver for the fast implementation of project results.
