The Fraunhofer Institute for Material Flow and Logistics IML, Rail-Flow GmbH, and Captrain Deutschland have developed a new tool to get more freight on rail. Aptly named “Rail Capacity Broker”, the tool should enable shippers to see where rail capacity is available for smaller shipments. Railway undertakings with spare capacity on block trains can also make use of the platform.
“Single wagonload traffic in Europe faces major challenges”, the three platform developers open their announcement of Rail Capacity Broker. That seems very accurate. Major rail operators, such as DB Cargo and SBB Cargo, have opted to restructure their unprofitable single wagonload operations. However, this also diminishes rail’s capacity to transport smaller shipments.
Rail Capacity Broker could help to overcome that challenge. The tool pools available capacity from existing services (including block trains) in a virtual network and uses this data to determine the optimal route, the developers say. Shippers will be able to see suitable transport options at a glance. If previously they could hardly get a comprehensive overview of the possibilities, now they can calculate routes for individual wagons and groups of wagons through this platform.
The involved rail service providers are expected to list their routes, including intermediate stops, available capacity, and expertise. An algorithm then determines the various options for customers.
Besides making rail more accessible, Rail Capacity Broker should help reduce the costs of transporting smaller shipments. Whereas traditional single wagonload transportation requires a lot of shunting movements (which raises costs), this tool can help make better use of capacity on existing routes.
Commercial concerns put to rest
The developers stress that the platform is neutral, despite the involvement of rail operator Captrain. For example, Rail-Flow, a software company that does not operate trains and does not sell transport services, is in charge of data security.
“The platform matches a transport request with available capacity and leaves the rest to the two parties”, explains a Captrain representative. Pricing and transport contracts continue to be negotiated directly between the partners. “The project consortium with Fraunhofer IML as research partner adds an independent view on the rules we apply”, adds Captrain.
Moreover, if rail operators are concerned about competitors gaining access to information about their services, Rail Capacity Brokers has a solution for that. “Capacity providers publish relation-level information on the platform: origin, destination, via points and optional other data like services or contact information. Where a provider does not want a specific competitor to see its network at all, it can block that company. The blocked company then sees nothing from that provider”, Captrain tells RailFreight.com.
It remains to be seen how successful the platform will turn out to be. “As the platform constitutes an entirely new approach to making rail freight capacity accessible to shippers, it is not possible to predict how much the participating companies will benefit from it”, says Captrain.