2008-09: DB nears private sector

If all goes according to plan, the long-anticipated partial privatisation of Germany's national railway will finally come to fruition by the end of this year. A 24·9% stake in the newly-established operating business DB Mobility Logistics AG is due to be floated on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange.

Target date is Nov­ember 5, although there have been suggestions that this might have to be delayed because of the weakening German economy and the global credit crunch. Nevertheless, Federal Transport Minister Wolfgang Tiefensee and Deutsche Bahn AG Chairman Hartmut Mehdorn are pressing ahead. Tiefensee, in particular, is keen to get the sale completed well ahead of the national elections scheduled for September 2009.

Read more: http://tinyurl.com/3f8ebm

2008-09: Freightwise Business Case and Work Package News Update

Freightwise Business Case and Work Package News Update:

Dag Atle Nesheim writes: In Case A1 we are still trying to agree on the details for the demonstration activities on basis of the discussions in Rotterdam. Detailed demonstrator plans were presented at a meeting on the 15 September. On the basis of this we now have a detailed plan, approved by involved project partners in Case A1 which will be presented to Norske Skog as soon as possible. This presentation will be followed by defining the deadlines for the demonstrator on basis of available resources at Norske Skog, DFDS and their IT provider GATSHIP and Logit Systems' implementation plans.

Christina Paschalidou reports on Case G:
A workshop meeting was organised in Thessaloniki on 17^th September between Case G partners (TREDIT, ANCO, THPA, PROODOS, OSE) in order to discuss about the Case G pilot.

In a few words the meeting results included:
- presentation of the last release of the FWF to the Greek partners
- discussion over the use and applicability of the information packages in our case (affirmation of the interaction between D13.2-Framework architecture and the case G pilot)

- selection of the scenarios that will be implemented and explanation of the respective processes
- decisions about the equipment that will be used (including RFID tags and portable RFID readers) and other practical/ technical details about the pilot set-up

Kay Fjortoft, leader of WP13 writes:
A new version of D13.4 on standardisation has been produced.  There is also a new version of the D13.3 report concerning the repository requirements, services, architecture, etc.

The  presentation of the Freightwise Framework has been updated reflecting the fine tuning of the FWF based on talks with WP15 and the cases.

2008-09: KOMODA survey on eLogistics and co-modality.

The NewRail group at Newcastle University are currently collecting expert opinion on the issues of eLogistics under European Commission’s FP7 funded project called ‘KOMODA- Co-modality – towards optimized integrated chains in freight transport logistics’. Under this project will be develop ed a structured and coherent action plan for innovation and change for the Commission, leading to an integrated eLogistics system Europe-wide on the principle of co-modality. With Freight and ICT key in the EC Freight Logistics Action Plan this is an opportunity to directly influence the development of future EC Freight-ICT policy and actions. The survey is suitable for experts in transport logistics and/or ICT and is located at: http://www.survey.bris.ac.uk/newcastle/komoda1