A breakthrough in analysing intermodal freight transport was announced at the second annual Freightwise conference in Prague.

The international conference, held in early December, heard how the implementation of the Freightwise Framework (FWF) would simplify booking freight services.

Jan-Tore Pedersen, technical manager - Freightwise of BMT Group Ltd (BMT), an international consultancy firm, says the implementation of the FWF means that intermodal transport is progressing to revolutionary stage. "I am convinced this is the way forward for intermodal freight management."

Eighty experts in transport IT and commercial and policy organisations who attended the conference indicated by survey they would be in favour of the European Commission (EC) taking a lead on making FWF a standard tool for managing intermodal transport.

The FWF shows the complex nature of booking freight services can be reduced to four roles and six messages. The four roles in intermodal transport were identified as transport service provider, the transport user, the transportation network manager and the transport regulator.

Either four people, companies or authorities or two or more roles by the same person in the same company or authority can adopt the roles.

The Freightwise Framework utilises six messages that are necessary to publish, advertise, plan, book, execute and invoice an intermodal transport service.

Freightwise is an EC-funded project that finances the research work of 54 European partners from manufacturing, transport, academia, software developers and consultancies to create an intelligent freight transport system. The project started November 2006 and will end in March 2010.

Freightwise develops a framework for freight transport that enables increased use of door-to-door transport services using one or more modes. The FWF will be used as a basis for developing a 'soft' infrastructure to enable planning, execution and completion of transport using the same principles that are frequently used for passenger air transport on the internet.