The SELIS approach to delivering a 'Platform for Pan-European Logistics Applications'

The sustainability of the logistics sector is challenged by its energy consumption, pressures on GHG emissions, globalisation, increased competition and consumer behaviour changes. In order to address these challenges, logistics actors have started to implement environmentally friendly collaborative strategies addressing supply chain integration, multimodal transport, consolidation of deliveries and reverse logistics. The implementation of such strategies frequently asserts the need for proactive and reactive coordination based on information sharing between collaborating actors, to optimally match supply and demand for logistics resources. However, adoption of advanced collaborative ICT solutions by the logistics sector is hindered by the number of transport management solutions, which yields a fragmented story, where actors have to contend with multiple tools, relationships, and fragmented views of their logistics business which are difficult, or impossible, to unify into one perspective. Further challenges relate to long established practices, multifaceted regulatory requirements and lack of trust. Also, until now, developments have been driven by the business interests of different stakeholders’ groups, including shippers, freight forwarders, ports and terminals, different mode carriers, and multiple alliances. This creates overlapping or incompatible technology solutions, with a limited potential to contribute to a Pan-European sustainable logistics landscape.
This paper explores several factors that influence the behaviour of transport and logistics companies in Europe and proposes an innovative “shared intelligence” approach, technology platform and collaborative solution for Pan-European logistics collaboration that is sensitive to supply chain sustainability challenges, yet supportive of existing tooling, systems and augmenting established logistics practices.