Online Rail Freight Exchange (ORFE): Better Rail Competitiveness and Acceptance

In many European countries, rail freight demand has increased considerably during the last 10–15 years. A closer look at the German case reveals that—given a considerable amount of empty wagons and an untransparent market—there is still some potential to increase efficiency and competitiveness of rail freight and to overcome knowledge and information barriers in the rail freight market. Embedded in the CODE24 strategy, an online rail freight exchange (ORFE) is a useful instrument to cope with these challenges. ORFE is a market platform where rail freight services are offered and requested on-line. Besides some initial business and case studies, the market’s relevance of such a tool and the requirements of potential users—predominantly shipping companies, transport logistics providers and rail operators—had to be explored. Therefore, a workshop was held with these groups and other experts in 2011. Based on the outcome, potential operators had to be identified. In September 2012, CODE24 identified two companies who were interested in cooperating with the CODE24 network and developing such an online rail market ready for commercialisation. CODE24 decided to support both companies and emphasize their neutrality. The first platform is “railcargo-online” ( http://www.railcargo-online.com ), the second platform is “freit-one” ( http://www.freit-one.de ). The latter uses the software prototype developed in CODE24. Both platforms are available since October 2013 and were presented at a joint workshop with the INTERREG-IVB programme in November 2013. A preliminary appraisal by February 2014 showed that both platforms are working well and count up to 80 registered companies. This paper uses metric tons throughout.