Together with its German partner HaCon, the Company won a tender for a value of 136.000 € and project duration of 9 months.

Genoa - Circle S.p.A. (“Circle”), a Company listed on AIM Italia, and its partner HaCon Ingenieurgesellschaft mbH, both specialized in process and management consulting services, and in providing innovative technological solutions for transport and logistics sector, won a tender with DG MOVE for the value of 136.000 € to study the opportunities to evolve Telematics Application for Freight Services (“TAF TSI”), a specific technical standard for rail interoperability.

TAF TSI has so far achieved standardisation and enhancement of exchanges between different rail infrastructure managers and railway undertakings, with very marginal involvement of terminals and therefore of multimodal dimension.

Looking to future policy implications such as the new proposed regulation for the Electronic Transport Document, this project will enable to exploit synergies with digitalised (or “e-enhanced”) multimodal logistics.

The aim of the study is to ascertain which potential conflicts and which complementarities can arise between TAF TSI and the initiatives developed as part of digitalisation of transport, identifying the overlapping, complementary, synergic functions of the two systems.

In close connection with the stakeholders, Circle and HaCon will also provide recommendations for potential extensions of the TAF TSI standard.

“For Circle this project represents another key part to support the European Commission in its digital policy development, also taking advantage of the relevant IT know-how of our company, especially in digital logistics” stated Alexio Picco, Circle’s Member of the Board and Director of the Connecting EU Business Unit.

This new assignment is in addition to other important contracts acquired by Circle at European level which will bring to the implementation of International Fast Trade Lanes pilot projects between Italy and Turkey, and in Bulgaria in connections between Orient - East/Med and Rhine Danube Core Network Corridors, as well as to new project supporting the European Commission (DG MOVE) and the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA) for the European Maritime Single Window.

“As key software provider for multimodal mobility solutions, we have already developed several transport planning and management systems that require an appropriate TAF TSI standard for the data exchange. We work with major logistics players on practical solutions and act as policy consultants for the general transport requirements; this allows us to provide the standardisation bodies with the right input for the TAF TSI revision process” said Lars Deiterding, Executive Director at HaCon and Head of the Logistics Department.

The new study is another piece in the puzzle for HaCon that has extensive experience when it comes to transport monitoring solutions. With its new ETA Management Platform for Railways and Combined Transport Operators that includes real-time information from various sources like terminals, operators will be provided with the necessary information to improve their services.