EGNOS for freight tracking and tracing

Tracking and tracing devices have been universally adopted in ITS for freight transport and logistics. In addition, through its policies and research initiatives, the European Union is stimulating technological innovation in the use of advanced satellite-based technologies to support smart mobility, higher efficiency and security of freight transport in the logistics chain
February 10, 2015 Read time: 2 mins
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Tracking and tracing devices have been universally adopted in ITS for freight transport and logistics. In addition, through its policies and research initiatives, the European Union is stimulating technological innovation in the use of advanced satellite-based technologies to support smart mobility, higher efficiency and security of freight transport in the logistics chain.  Some of these initiatives specifically pursue the use of the positioning services provided by the European satellite navigation systems EGNOS (European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service) and Galileo.

Italian company 6711 Telespazio, a Finmeccanica-Thales company, has developed a solution to provide tracking and tracing services utilising EGNOS. The solution has been extensively proved within the framework of the European CONTAIN project in demonstrations in Europe in cooperation with Interporto Bologna and also in Jordan in cooperation with the Ministry of Transport of Jordan and Jordanian Customs within the framework of the European MEDUSA project.

Both demonstrations validated the added value of EGNOS for providing robust and reliable traceability of freight traffic. In particular, the use of EGNOS is said to enhance the security of the transport of goods and enable the establishment of liability schemes among the various stakeholders, supporting the implementation of smart mobility and European policies for logistics, such as e-freight and green lanes.

The recent European CORE project capitalises on these results to develop a real business case for the intermodal transport of dangerous material like chemicals across European corridors, turning the proofs of concept developed within CONTAIN and MEDUSA into best practices based on EGNOS and in the perspective of Galileo.

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