There
are some interesting meetings this week in Leipzig, Germany, as The International
Transport Forum (ITF), an intergovernmental organization with 54 member
countries, which acts as a think tank for transport policy, holds its
Annual Summit of transport ministers.
 |
ITF is the only global body
that covers all transport modes, but what caught our eye were the interesting
speakers, including Sarah Hunter, head of Public Policy at Google. Hunter
has worked closely with several product teams as they develop new technologies,
from self-driving cars to life sciences to Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs)
and the balloon-powered Internet (Project Loon).
UPS Europe Region Transportation District
Manager Al Bedran is also at ITF as part of the lone panel dedicated to
air cargo titled “Aviation in a world of evolving supply chains.”
Bedran began his UPS career in 1979 as a
part-time package handler in the North Florida District, and as they say,
he knows this business inside and out.
Mr. Bedran joins Dorothee Bär, German
Parliamentary state secretary at the Federal Ministry of Transport and
Digital Infrastructure; Vladimir Zubkov, vice-president, Relations with
International Organizations, Volga-Dnepr; and Glynn Hughes, head of Cargo,
IATA.
There is also a two-hour tour of the operations
of CargoBeamer, a European transport system consisting of special wagons
and terminals with cargo handling that allow all non-craneable semi-trailers
to be shifted from road to rail.
 “Freight
traffic on European roads is forecast to grow by 75 percent until 2025,"
said Hans-Juergen Weidemann, CEO of CargoBeamer.
“CargoBeamer has the potential to
shift major amounts of cargo traffic efficiently (and keep environmentally-friendly)
from road to rail."
“With the support of the European
Commission, CargoBeamer is constructing an initial east-west connection
from BeNeLux via NRW, Saxony, Poland, and Lithuania to Latvia with its
cooperation partners.
“Starting from Calais, CargoBeamer
is also planning operations for a major European freight route with high
traffic volumes: a north/south route to Italy via France, Germany, and
Switzerland,” the company said.
ITF concludes on Friday, but the speeches
and plenty of pictures will be available here.
Geoffrey
|
