ESEP4Freight– Shift to Rail in Freight Transport

New European research project ESEP4Freight (European Shift Enabler Portal for Freight) started on 1st September 2023. This marks a boost a shift to rail in freight

The ESEP4Freight project, funded by Europe’s Rail Joint Undertaking, held its kick-off meeting in Berlin on 6th-7th September 2023. ESEP4Freight, coordinated by Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) of Stockholm and funded with €1.3 million, started on 1st September. It will take place over a 24-month period.

The consortium, comprising nine partners from five countries, also includes EUropean Rail Research Network of Excellence (Eurnex), Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Union Internationale pour le Transport Combiné Rail-Route (UIRR), Fundació Eurecat, Gruber Logistics, Tenalach Consulting, Studiengesellschaft für den Kombinierten Verkehr (SGKV), and Consorzio per la Zona Agricola Industrialle di Verona (ZAI).

The main objectives of ESEP4Freight are:

• Creating, integrating, and validating a set of web-based services integrated in an open-access Web Platform. This will include an interactive map of the existing European rail freight infrastructure with routes and schedules viewers, as well as a CO2 calculator, a contract toolbox and a match making tool.
• Proposing recommendations to adapt the current contractual and legal framework in intermodal transport to the needs of the different actors involved in the supply chain.
• Bringing together a large number of actors of the European logistics system to identify their information needs and to test and disseminate the ESEP4Freight results.

This first meeting outlined the activities on the agenda during the coming months of the project. These activities include the mapping of existing tools, the pre-identification of information needs of the different logistic actors, and a first definition of the modules to be included in the new Web Platform.