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 Pro Danube is hereby proud to report on the progress of PhysICAL, a leading research project dealing with the concept of Physical Internet for the logistics sector in Austria, co-funded by the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG).
On the 15th of April representatives of the project consortium came together for a virtual meeting to kick-start a very important project workpackage covering one of the pilot activities which is dealing with wood & forestry products logistics.
In a workshop atmosphere, representatives of Steiermarkbahn, 4PL Intermodal, A1 Digital, Cargo Center Graz, Pro Danube Management, Wiener Lokalbahnen Cargo, Austrian Institute of Technology, Technical University of Graz and Fraunhofer Austria agreed on the next steps for the successful rollout of the related activities.
The focus of this workpackge is the development and use of a standardized, flexible, smart container for wood and wood products to enable smooth transshipping between the different modes of transport (truck, rail, barge). Integration within a digital platform is foreseen to enable all related logistics chain operations such as ordering of carrying containers, transport route optimization, traceability of the load, integration of billing software. For this purpose, several technological aspects need to be considered such as the adaptation of existing flat wagons of the narrow-gauge railways to container flat wagons, development and construction of prototypes of the smart containers as well as the development of an app solution. The discussion brought in several aspects such as pro & cons as well as risks for using such smart containers, as well as manifold details in terms of logistics operations planning.
The next steps envisaged are the consultations with highly experienced industry representatives, for a collection of good practices to support further the definition of technical specifications.
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