The UIC and FIATA (International Federation of Freight Forwarders Associations) Rail Group Meeting was held from 23 – 24 April 2015 at ÖBB headquarters in Vienna. UIC and FIATA – the worldwide organisations of railways and freight forwarders – are jointly or-ganising this event. Many representatives from railways, freight forwarders and transport organisations took an active part in the meeting.
The key aim of this annual meeting is to provide a lively exchange platform for railway undertakings and freight forwarders as well as to create an opportunity to brainstorm on effective transport solutions and railway transport attractiveness.
Among others, significant topics were discussed, such as:
• Market challenge: How to open the rail freight market to more customers and increase its potential;
• Border crossing procedures and trade facilitation;
• Development in infrastructure, legal environment and unification as a factor to in-crease the rail market;
• Best practice examples and challenges on existing corridors.
During the brainstorming session, participants from different railways and freight forwarders from different countries creatively simulated and brainstormed on essential questions such as:
– How to react to changes by liberalisation process?
– How to open the market to more participants then a few larger players?
– Multimodal approach – logistics by rail/sea/road as a unified platform
The outcome of the meeting would be the “Declaration” of the UIC and FIATA organisa-tion’s cooperation roadmap, to promote railway attractiveness for members and customers.
