CESAR II - Co-operative European System for Advanced information Redistribution II
Overview
Background & policy context:
As many different partners are involved in combined transport chains, EDI and telecommunications need to facilitate operations for the final customer. Internet based solutions can reach a wide variety of clients but are usually chaotic: every provider has its own data-structure.
CESAR-I developed and tested Internet based standards on one European corridor.
The CESAR-II project aims to meet the demands of six European operators to open the first successful pilot system on other corridors and types of intermodal transport chains, adding new specific services.
Objectives:
The overall objective of CESAR (Co-operative European System for Advanced Information Redistribution) is the improvement of intermodal transport performance and quality, to attract more transport volume for intermodal transport and increase efficiency of transport in the European Union by establishing a common and harmonised tracking and tracing system.
CESAR-II identifies, analyses and implements a pilot version of an extended system with broader modal coverage and improved service level. It behaves like a virtual company while maintaining accessible transport services of different operators.
Under one single interface on the Web, the following functionalities are developed:
- European harmonised timetables
- Common tracking and tracing system
- Information in case of irregularities.
In addition, the CESAR II project has been working on the following main additions to the CESAR system:
- Enlargement and deepening of the CESAR system to further intermodal transport markets, services and functions,
- Inclusion of further information sources into the automatic message transfer,
- Improvement of the current system and establishment of electronic data exchange between the system and data systems of clients,
- Integration of container transport systems,
- Further dissemination and enlargement of coverage area.
Methodology:
CESAR II project was carried out according to the following steps:
- Integration of additional services: timetables, service offers and prices for unaccompanied traffic. The first design problem to be taken into consideration was to allow customers to have a direct access to a centralised consolidated European timetable based on information sent by the different operators. A common exchange format for this information and a common layout for the presentation of information to the customer have been established.
- Integration of additional status events (the irregularities). The handling of irregularity information is the most complex function in the CESAR system but also a puzzle for the operator's EDP systems. The basis is a well-defined organisation between the operators to give the customer a consistent picture of the situation. The operational departments of each involved operator take care on irregularity information from different sources: the CESAR project fulfills the need of harmonising the structures and rules of the different organisations involved in the same transport.
- Automatic inclusion of data from dedicated systems. This step had the CESAR partners connect tracking and tracing systems to their in-house operation systems and not directly to the central CESAR server. The in-house systems receive on-schedule or delayed information and enquire what has happened. Then, they create an irregularity message including a coded reference to the circumstances of this irregularity. This allows the client to judge whether he has to initiate specific action or not. Such information cannot be derived directly from tracking and tracing systems.
- Integration of further specific intermodal transport areas. The CESAR partners investigated three main areas for future possible enlargement to further areas of the CESAR system: the inclusion of intermodal transports between Great Britain and the continent using the Channel Tunnel, the inclusion of port to hinterland transport by interconnecting ship services and the inclusion of intermodal transport operators outside the European Union.
- Establishment of computer-to-computer data flow between CESAR and clients' systems. A number of key customers of CESAR operators were interviewed and stated they prefer a light solution which enables them to automatically treat CESAR data without having to in
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