AGORA (advanced terminal management as a proactive contribution to intermodal value chain) is a “common learning action” project of the European Commission Marco Polo Programme.
UIC, represented by its Combined Transport Group, is one of the partners in the project which aims to improve the management capabilities of intermodal operators across Europe and increase capacity through a set of innovative and smart operational measures.

The project, started in January 2009, held its final conference last week in Frankfurt, where a “Good Practice Manual on efficient terminal management” and the project website (two of the key deliverables) were presented.

Ms Denise Kwantes, from EACI (Executive Agency for Competitiveness and Innovation) opened the conference by recalling the fundamentals of the Marco Polo Programme.
Dr Groner-Weber from the German Ministry of Transport highlighted the need and the will of the German Ministry to invest in intermodality. Sandra Géhénot presented the result of UIC’s “2010 Report on Combined Transport”, indicating that intermodal rail road transport carried approximately 154.5 million tonnes of goods in 2009 and had a clear growth perspective, with two digit growth rates forecasted for the next two years. The full report will be available on the UIC website from December.
The Agora partners then gave a presentation on how they are preparing themselves by applying good practice criteria to the increase of capacity and efficiency.

The conference then concluded with the announcement that the AGORA partners were committed to continuing their collaboration and a terminal interest group was formed.

All conference documents are available on the AGORA website
www.intermodal-terminals.eu