2009-02: Validation of the Freightwise Framework (D17.2) - a report on progress by Yannis Tyrinopolous

The first phase of the Freightwise Framework (FWF) validation was devoted to the assessment of the usefulness, acceptance and technical completeness of the FWF by selected stakeholders-members of the Freightwise business cases. These stakeholders expressed their satisfaction and acceptance of the Framework; they made however, useful and concrete comments that will facilitate its completion. Two of the most important aspects examined across all four elements of the FWF are: a) the level of coverage and b) the simplicity of all four FWF elements. The most important finding is the effective coverage of stakeholders’ types, transport and business processes, information flows and messages used in the current intermodal freight transport by the corresponding FWF elements.  This mainly applies to the Information Packages due to the satisfactory level of coverage of the fields and attributes of the messages currently interchanged between the various parties in the transport chain by the FWF.

Enabling simplicity is a major goal of Freightwise. Therefore, this aspect of the FWF was thoroughly examined. The major outcome was that more effort must be placed in the Information Packages. The interviewees expressed a great need for simplifying the business and transport transactions and procedures, and the analysis demonstrated the major difficulty in developing messages that will significantly reduce the existing complexity.

The validation report also draws some recommendations, based on the FWF validation results, for the next version of the FWF. The efforts should be placed in the following aspects:

• Sufficiency of the standardized format of messages
• Simplicity of messages and interfaces
• Harmonization of messages serving co-modality
• Facilitation of communication between stakeholders

2009-02: Intermodal Innovation Day Conference

Intermodal Innovation Day Conference Istanbul, Turkey, February 12-13,

The coordination action PROMIT (Promoting Innovative Intermodal Freight Transport) and the European Intermodal Association (EIA) are happy to invite you to the Intermodal Innovation Day Conference with subject "Sustainability and efficiency through intermodal best practices".

The conference will take place in Istanbul, Turkey, on February 12-13, 2009. Reserve these days in your business calendar!

Attached, please find the draft Conference programme and additional useful information.

Please register online through the website: www.promit-project.net.

On the website you will also find recommended hotels for your accommodation with special rates for the conference.

DO NOT MISS THE OPPORTUNITY TO PARTICIPATE IN THE INTERMODAL EVENT OF 2009

2009-02: Christina Paschalidou reports on Case South East (G)

The objective of Case G is to develop and promote solutions that improve the ability to absorb increased freight transport demand through the harmonisation of information exchange and processes, and the integration of advanced and appropriate technologies (GIS, XML, web-services, RFID, barcode), while maintaining interoperability with existing IT solutions.

A re-engineered business model has been developed providing plans for the operation of the case covering processes, information, organisation and technology specifications in order to be used as a basis for implementation according to the FWF requirements. Also the use and applicability of the information packages for Case G were defined after the last release of the FWF and certain scenarios were selected to be implemented. These activities resulted in the delivery of D22.G.1 Re-engineered business model; its final version was submitted at the end of Year 2 (month 24) incorporating modifications made in the second release of FWF.

WP23 activities started some months ago with adaptation of the technical specifications in order to provide integration of the FW system with the ICT solutions currently used by the industrial partners.

Finally, evaluation activities led to the respective Deliverable (D25.1 Zero State Case G) which included the expectations of each partner from the project, the quantitative and qualitative indicators which should measure each objective, the comparison between the current and target level in order to analyse the above indicators and the examination of the technical and organisational feasibility of new services and applications.

2009-02: A Report on Progress on the FREIGHTWISE Requirement Generator (WP12) by Christina Paschalidou

The objectives of WP 12 are to provide a broad and integrated definition of stakeholder requirements that can be mapped onto the emergent FREIGHTWISE Framework, to identify aspects already covered and highlight the ones that the market demands, to establish a formal requirement structure for the FREIGHTWISE Framework architecture, and to develop a high-level model by providing a reality check linking the outcomes of the business cases with the a priori generated requirements.

A revised version of the Deliverable D12.1 Previous RTD projects findings and EU policy was officially submitted at the end of Year 2 incorporating the results of a survey and review of industry initiatives.

Additionally, the WP team provided a reference document (D12.3 Requirement handbook) in the form of a "checklist" guiding interested parties through the development of an intermodal transport monitoring solution. The original design and requirements are reconciled by the actual implementations resulting from the needs of the project case partners and augmented with additional information emerging from the demonstrations. This report was revised and officially submitted at the end of the project's 2nd year, while a second release is expected to be issued when new requirements might have been raised from the appliance of the framework to pilots.

The High Level formal model (D12.4) uses the reference handbook from D12.3 and formalises it in three top level framework models. A first release was delivered in the first year and was revised during the second according to the comments received after the technical review. Release 2 is expected to be issued by the end of the 3rd year after the appliance of the framework.