Digital Internet models shaping the future of the Logistics Industry
The Transport and Logistics industry is a key contributor to the macroeconomic developments around the globe, even though it remains to date a fragmented industry with limited interconnection between operators, proprietary systems and often lack of supply chain visibility. The recent Coronavirus pandemic has shown the vulnerability of the industry to exogenous parameters and the need for greater collaboration and technological advancements in the field. The Physical Internet promises to bring a novel way of how physical goods can move more efficiently based on the successful paradigm of the Digital Internet. The basis of the design of this new concept is to analyze and borrow elements and analogies from the Digital Internet which has been around for years mirroring the way data is transferred between computer networks and devices.
The EU funded project ICONET is a three-year research programme and has received funding from the Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Grant Agreement No 769119. It has dissected, analysed, reviewed and critically tested these elements and has proved that indeed Logistics collaborative communities or Physical Intranets could be inspired by digital internet and directly or indirectly networked into one overarching logistics collaborative community. The results are promising and showcase a more efficient, less expensive, reliable, secure and environmentally friendly Logistics ecosystem of the future.
