Cargo railways bring alliance Xrail on the track
| Seven European cargo railways agree on tighter cooperation in cross-border single wagon traffic After a long period of preparations seven European railways put their project to boost international single wagon traffic into practice. On 18 February an agreement to found the Allianz Xrail was signed in Zurich. The founding members are the companies DB Schenker Rail (Germany, Netherlands Denmark), SNCB Logistics (Belgium), CD Cargo (Czech Republic), CFL Cargo (Luxemburg), Green Cargo (Sweden, Norway) Rail Cargo Austria (Austria, Hungary) and SBB Cargo (Switzerland). The target of the Xrail Allianz is to make the international single wagon traffic on the rail more reliable and customer oriented, and hence increase competitiveness against road transport in Europe. They agreed upon joint production and information standards for single wagon transport. In addition to a considerably faster planning, customers will get electronic information about their transports, which shall arrive punctual to at least 90 per cent on relations within the XRail network. In 2010 Xrail will operate the service on around 200 strategically and customer-oriented important relations. About half of the international transport volume on the rail is handled with single wagon traffic. The production system is cost-intensive and complex. The members agree that international quality standards will considerably improve the processes on behalf of the customers. Quelle: Österreichische Verkehrszeitung |