Freight transportation constitutes one of the transport sectors where applications of RTI (Road Transport Informatics) technologies has already been initiated especially in the earlier stages of the transport chain (transaction phase and some in strategic planning phase). Significant differences are observed on a geographical basis incurrent applications as well as in the amount and type of benefits that such applications might generate to operators in the future. Hence the need arose for the evaluation of the current usefulness of these systems which has to be evaluated versus the penetration achieved so far or expected to be achieved in the future. RTI technologies are developed by industries but promoted both by industries and by governments (EEC, national governments). EUROFRET has investigated the possibility of setting strategies at government level for RTI applications in RFO (Road Freight Operations). To achieve this, first alternative scenaria were devised for the development of RFO operations in the next 20 years in Europe. For every scenario the most important RFO activities were identified. The possibility of serving these scenario-specific activities by various RTI technologies was subsequently evaluated and relevant strategies developed. Government resistance to these strategies can be moderated through the application of various means and policies which constitute a different approach to strategy development for promoting technology innovation in RFO. These strategies were evaluated with respect to their applicability using criteria such as acceptability by users, costs and benefits, timing of applications, geographical differentiation of applications, etc. This paper presents the results obtained so far from EUROFRET project on the above areas and concludes with the selection of the strategy that seems most effective for short to medium term implementation of RTI in RFO in Europe.
Samenvatting