Logistics and goods run on digital tracks
(by Vito Coviello - Head of AIDR Transport and Logistics Observatory) Let's start with a strong sign of hope and with a date: 4 August 2020.
The inauguration of the Ponte San Giorgio in Genoa confirms that there is an Italy capable of planning, designing and implementing a great work within the expected time frame that has restored confidence to everyone, not just to Genoese citizenship.
Nobody doubts Italy's ability to research, design and build with innovative methods in every sector, starting with infrastructures: it is essential, however, now to give strong signs of discontinuity with the past and to create the infrastructures and services on which to travel in the right time. economic recovery more rapidly.
It is time for an Italian model to be established in Europe and beyond the borders of Europe, abandoning the old stereotypes and models first.
A sector from which to start again is that of goods logistics which requires urgent interventions to the infrastructural system and requires a national plan for the digitization of the entire supply chain.
In addition to the urgent infrastructural interventions aimed at allowing the movement of any type of goods by fully exploiting the different means of transport, it is urgent to intervene in the standardization and complete digitalization of the entire supply chain.
We are talking about intermodality of transport and above all about sustainability, favoring among the different means of transport the best solutions to ensure speed (airplanes), economy (ships), sustainability (train), the convenience of "door to door" delivery ( road transport) in a balance of solutions that safeguard the environment.
The bet therefore starts from our strategic ports (and their rear ports) in the Mediterranean, where the recovery of competitiveness can also and above all come from the projects for the construction of the corridors.
The rail and road corridors must allow for rapid sorting and delivery of goods to ports and from ports to other Italian, European and non-European destinations.
In the Italy model, new high-speed railway lines will have to free up many new corridors on the current railway lines; lines that can be used for rapid movement of goods from / to ports, back ports and interports to the nearest door-to-door delivery location.
In the Italy model, solutions such as "traveling highway" (trailer and tractor on train) should be implemented, reducing the risks of highway transport, fuel consumption, pollution and, at the same time, safeguarding the balance between the different modes of transport by placing a lot of attention to environmental protection.
But the first real revolution will be the one that will make goods travel on… digital tracks!
Much work has already been done in this direction: the dematerialization of transport documents (DDT) with relative archiving and substitutive storage of documents is already a reality in many modes of transport.
In European international rail transport, the Convention on Rail Transport (COTIF) applies. The member states in Europe apply most of the appendices to the COTIF and, therefore, the uniform rules for the transport of goods and among these, the rules that allow the electronic transmission of data relating to the transport document and its annexes.
The legislation on transport and goods is therefore increasingly directed towards a European digital single market with rules common to all European countries: digitalization of transport, automatic generation of delivery certificates with evidential value, traceability of transport, archiving and conservation replacement of documents.
A few days ago the news given by the Ministry of Infrastructures and Transport (MIT) of the establishment of a control room within the Digital and National Logistics Platform Project for the development and implementation of systems of national interest.
The National Digital Logistics Platform created by the implementing body of MIT - UIRnet, is an Intelligent Transport System (ITS) created to concentrate data and deliver services to all operators and stakeholders of logistics and transport for the creation and management of the Logistics Platform National Digital.
The table will include Customs Agency, ALIS, Anasped, Anita, Assiterminal, Assocad, Assofer, Assologistica, Assoporti, Port Authorities, Federagenti - Maritime Agents, Federtrasporto, Fedespi, Fercargo, Slala, United Transport, UIR, Unatras.
UIRnet and the Digital National Logistics Platform were created with the aim of:
- Promote the standardization of processes and computerization in the logistics sector.
- Encourage intermodality by promoting specific projects for the logistics sectors (road haulage, railway system, ports, interports).
- to provide tools for the exchange of information and to improve the application cooperation between transport companies, in order to ensure a continuous flow of goods, also improving safety.
The bet in the logistics sector is that the spread of digitalization can be of support in the rapid reduction of the infrastructural gap with other European countries.
Competitiveness and economic recovery start (and not only in a figurative sense ...), from a greater competitiveness of the transport sector and in this context digital technology has a very strong strategic importance.
Therefore, adequate investments of public interest are needed in new digital technologies applied to the transport system: research, innovation, IOT, Blockchain applied to the logistics and goods supply chain, are just a few examples.