On March 19th, 2024, the FOR-FREIGHT and ESEP4Freight projects had their first introductory meeting to discuss mutual goals and future collaborations. 

ESEP4Freight (European Shift Enabler Portal for Freight) to boost shift to rail in freight transport started on 1st September 2023. The project, coordinated by the Division of Transport planning at Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm and funded with EUR 1,3 million, started on 1st September and will take place over a 24-month period.

The consortium, comprising of 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 into 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 in the European logistics system to identify their information needs and to test and disseminate the ESEP4Freight results. This first meeting served to align the activities to be carried out 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.