As part of the Fit for Freight Autumn Days, a webinar on “Contemporary challenges in combined transport from policy to business perspective” was held online in the morning of 12 October. The session was opened by Barbara Chevalier, CEO of CFL Multimodal, who welcomed the audience with an introduction explaining how CFL Multimodal and CFL Cargo are contributing to combined transport by promoting transshipment with containers, and highlighting that current clients both want and expect solutions.

Next, Philip Van den bosch, UIC Deputy Freight Director and coordinator of the event, gave a presentation on the trends and developments, stressing that combined transport is at a turning point.

He emphasised how successful the corridor concept is and that it remains an engine for growth, pointing out that the Northern Corridor between Asia and Europe has been a triumph and that the Middle East Corridor has potential. Van den bosch then added that the rail sector still faces economic and commercially challenging times, as it has not fully recovered from recent events and must also rise to new challenges. For example, the most significant growth is expected in the “product” category (such as e-commerce), and it may be difficult to address and respond to this shift in the market. Nevertheless, the political situation is promising, particularly with Turkey announcing major investment to develop a southern corridor, and on a technical level this is also the case, as new market demands can be adapted to.

He summarised by saying that circumstances are currently favourable for combined transport, but that they are also full of challenges.

The audience then had the chance to learn more about current developments in combined transport in Europe, from a business and policy perspective with presentations on:

• The role of combined transport in current logistics operations and in the delivery of sustainability solutions, by Eric Feyen, Technical Director, UIRR
• The new UIC Combined Transport report, developed by UIC members, by Eric Lambert, former Chair of the Combined Transport Group, UIC
• A new study on the developments and opportunities for transshipment between rail and waterborne transport, by Louis Descamps, University of Antwerp
• The role of combined transport from a customer perspective, by Tobia Mazzi, Transportation Purchasing Senior Manager, Arcese Trasporti
• Combined transport in a new legislative and political context presenting the latest EU legislatives, by Jacques Dirand, Head of Rail Freight Services, CER
• Combined transport in Eastern Europe by Andrius Sinkevičius, Business Development, LTG Cargo

The presentations will be soon available at: https://uic.org/events/contemporary-challenges-in-combined-transport-from-policy-and-business.