Overview
The primary aim of the ENABLE project was to contribute to the external relations of EU with Latin American countries, specifically Argentina and Brazil, in the area of co-modal and intermodal freight transport.
The main goal of the project was to boost the external relations between the EU and Latin American countries, focusing on the sector of co-modal and intermodal freight transport.
The project objective concerned stimulating sustainable freight transport systems with Latin American countries. In order to achieve this, the workplan of ENABLE entailed inventories and surveys to obtain a sound picture of the situation of intermodal freight transport in Latin America. State-of-the-art reviews in Europe allow for the identification of strengths and innovations of the European freight transport industry and research and provide concrete road maps to facilitate their effective transfer to the target areas.
Special attention was paid to networking and partnership building actions that will strengthen the dialogue between Europe and Latin America, and foster international cooperation between the two geographical areas. A stakeholders Forum was established in Latin America. Furthermore, forum sessions, conferences and other dissemination actions contributed to the visibility of the project results and engaged the stakeholders of both sides in a fruitful dialogue. The partners of the project comprised a team that covered all disciplines that were essential and necessary for the successful implementation of the work plan.
The two Latin American partners have a deep knowledge of the intermodal freight transport activities in their countries and the greater region, and they played the role of agents in the knowledge transfer activities. The European partners were three of the most active organisations in the continent with respect to inter modal freight transport activities. The consortium was assisted by the European Intermodal Association (EIA) by engaging its extensive know-how in European innovations, as well as its members expertise and contacts in the Latin American inter modal transport society.
Funding
Results
The ENABLE project managed to become a forum of interaction between representatives from the research and industry communities of both regions in the field of freight transport and logistics, under the umbrella of which recommendations and concrete actions for promoting the business and research cooperation between Europe and Latin America were defined.
- Within its technical activities, ENABLE identified the following main freight transport needs, requirements and barriers of the targeted Latin American countries (i.e. Argentina and Brazil):
- Deficiencies in legislation of tariffs that lead to a disability of promoting sustainable multimodal freight transport systems in Argentina and Brazil.
- An unsustainable transportation matrix, characterised by the dominance of road transport.
- The deficiency of investments in the transport infrastructure (mainly in multimodal corridors), which poses a significant barrier to certain freight operations (i.e. intensification of use of rail between Argentina and Brazil).
- The need for enlargement of port capacities.
- ENABLE provided a sound picture of the main developments in European intermodal freight transport, concerning both industrial/business best practices and research innovations. As a result, 33 European best practices (17 business cases and 16 research innovations) were identified as those addressing best the freight transport needs and barriers of Argentina and Brazil. These 33 best practices address specific LA barriers and were thoroughly described, thus paving the way for their transferability in the LA region.
- The most challenging result of ENABLE was the production of a series of roadmaps (one roadmap per each European business case and research innovation), which entailed concrete and specific strategies and action lines that could be applied by the LA freight transport stakeholders, in order to successfully adopt the European know-how and adapt it to their area's specific characteristics. The roadmaps will facilitate the future implementation and deployment of the European best practices in the two Latin American countries of Brazil and Argentina, by proposing concrete actions in multifaceted levels (technical, organizational, strategic, etc.).
- Two workshops were held, in Argentina and Brazil, and two International Conferences took place, one in each of the aforementioned LA countries (Figure 2). These events succeeded in bringing together LA actors of different fie
Strategy targets
- Innovating for the future: technology and behaviour
- The external dimension