Towards a Shared European Logistics Intelligent Information Space

This chapter looks at how the European Union is developing an approach to address the substantial change taking place in the Transport and Logistics sector, influenced by factors such as globalisation, smart specialisation, population growth, business competition, and consumer interest for globally sourced products. The European Commission’s strategy for Smart, Green and Integrated Transport and Logistics identified the need for a common communication and navigation platform for pan-European logistics. In parallel a central goal of the Commission was to boost competitiveness in the European Transport and Logistics sector and develop a resource-efficient and environmentally friendly European transport system. Central to the EC’s strategic vision was the development of architectures and open systems for information sharing and valorisation to connect key stakeholders on the basis of trusted business agreements. The evolving landscape set the scene for creating innovative collaboration-driven Supply Chain optimisation, and underpinned the innovation imperatives for the Shared European Logistics Intelligent Information Space (SELIS) project, which sought to address these issues and which is discussed in this chapter.