The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) and its subsidiary body, the United Nations Centre for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business (UN/CEFACT) have published a set of aligned standards for the digitalization of intermodal transport data exchanges to support global supply chain freight movements.
These standards comprise technical specifications and supporting tools: data subsets of the UN/CEFACT Multimodal Transport Reference Data Model (MMT RDM), XSD schemas, data structures, etc., for key documents accompanying goods transported in movements through one or more of the five modes of transport; that is, load movements maritime, river, air, road and railThese movements align with each other as each is a subset of the overall UN/CEFACT multimodal reference data model, which itself is part of the UN/CEFACT Global Supply Chain Semantic Reference Data Model (BSP RDM).
This European institution, which connects points around the world, has been working on the development of these standards and supporting pilot projects since 2020 within the framework of the United Nations multi-agency project on Transport and Trade Connectivity in the COVID-19 pandemic. Thus, the standards cover key documents accompanying goods: consignment notes, shipping documents and those additional documents supporting the transport of goods by rail, road, sea, air and inland waters.
To this end, the work has benefited from the experience of many experts from the United Nations Centre for Facilitation of Procedures and Practices in Administration, Trade and Transport (CEFACT) Forum and from collaborations with organisations essential to modal standards. For example, the technical specifications for electronic information exchange for three transport documents have included standards as a result of collaboration with the International Civil Aviation Organisation and the International Air Transport Association. These documents are essential for cargo safety, security and efficiency: Air Waybill (AWB), Dangerous Goods Declaration (DGD) and Shipment Security Declaration (CSD).
UN/CEFACT Reference Data Models (RDMs) facilitate the use of international standards by packaging information by sector and activity or range of related business processes. They therefore provide a basic semantic library of all information and code lists required for data exchange in that particular sector. This is because these data models are subsets of a broader component library (UN/CCL), which covers a range of code lists, business process models and message schemas, allowing for the use of a variety of code lists, business process models and message schemas. interoperability with other sectors is seamless. As UN/CEFACT provides a semantic hub, the reuse of its data models and data exchange structures can provide a unique and valuable set of tools to increase the interoperability in this field.
These new UN/CEFACT tools contribute to the next generation of United Nations semantic standards for the exchange of trade and transport data in the Internet age. This builds on previous results, in particular the case of UN/EDIFACT, which has been developing for 30 years to support electronic document exchange and which today supports millions of messages exchanged globally every day. The new generation of standards based on reference data models are independent of the interchange syntax and are suitable for implementation using advanced technologies. modern and emerging, such as XML, JSON, Restful API and blockchain.
It is important to note that the UN/CEFACT standards They do not replace existing international regulatory standards for transport contracts, such as the IATA standard. for an electronic air waybill. Instead, they provide a basis for interoperability of cargo data across different transport modes and sectors using a common semantic foundation. The exchange of standardised data supporting multimodal transport for operational purposes can also provide a solid basis for submitting data to regulatory agencies and single window systems, following the UN/CEFACT Pipeline Data Exchange Standard (PDES).
The goal is a seamless and highly efficient exchange of data, while limiting person-to-person contacts in the supply chain, with the use of UN standards and modern information technology tools. One of the first industries to use this approach has been freight transport. Experts from FIATA (International Federation of Freight Forwarders Associations) and UN/CEFACT collaborated in 2021 for the development of a FIATA electronic multimodal bill of lading, aligned with the Multimodal Transport Reference Data Model.
In several pilot projects, experts analysed the transformative potential of UN/CEFACT standards and multimodal transport reference data models: for example, digital twins in exports of wood materials from Belarus to Serbia, as well as bitumen and meat between Azerbaijan and Ukraine. Experts are now working on a project to cRail freight and multimodal transport between countries in Asia, Eurasia and Western EuropeThe European Commission is also working on the implementation of the Regulation on Information Electronic Freight Transport (eFTI in English), considering the use of the reference data model for multimodal transport for the purposes of data exchange.UNECE Press Release]
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