The role of informatics in future freight transport

Overview & Synopsis

The development of "logistics" in Europe since the 1980's has been leading to a complete integration of transport operations in a global approach of physical flows management. Freight transport has strongly been changing to get appropriate goods to the right place, at the right time and the lower total cost. Introduction of informatics, one of the technologies involved in "advanced logistics systems", is for sure one of the most relevant evolutions. The purposes of the present paper are to give an understandable view of the current state of informatics systems in use in freight transport, to provide an overview of their incoming evolutions and to evaluate the key-role they will play in this sector. The paper begins in section 1 with a definition of the logistics concept. It presents its integration in European firms management and shows how information and communication systems are important in logistics. Section 2 presents the characteristics of logistics organizations in manufacturing, distribution, and logistics supplying and points out the main trends of logistics evolutions. In section 3, the paper focuses on today's advanced information and communication systems in freight transport management. It points out the so-called "driving forces" that have been leading European firms to develop such systems and outlines the most interesting ones. As a conclusion, it forecasts the impacts of advanced systems on the freight transport sector.