The transport sector is influenced and moulded by ongoing economic, environmental and
political pressures to realise its potential for improvement. Differences in the performance
of various modes within the transport sector of a given country, and between the transport
systems of different countries, imply that there is a significant potential for improving
the efficiency of the transport sector. Efficient use of transport modes and resources
requires understanding the options and alternatives and being able to make the right
logistics choices. Benchmarking is an instrument that can help to answer this question.
The BE LOGIC project (co-founded by the European Commission in the scope of the 7th
Framework Programme for Research and Development), which officially started on 1
September 2008 with a duration of 30 months, aims to improve the quality and
efficiency within and across different modes of transport, by means of benchmarking
in logistics and co-modality.
An important result of the project will be an e-tool that can be used by SMEs aiming to
support a company’s search for potential strategic improvements due to a modal change.
In order to compare the current practise with an alternative based on a different transport
mode, six main criteria are used: time, cost, flexibility, reliability, quality and
sustainability. The alternatives are compared with each other, giving a percentage
difference on each of the criteria. The combination of these criteria provides the user with
a broad overview of the potential effects of a modal change. The BE LOGIC tool makes
use of the judgement of the user, a terminal database containing intermodal services and a
calculation tool for emissions.
The focus of the benchmarking of policies relevant to logistics and co-modality is the
policy and its output relevant for inter-modality only. This case study focuses on lessons
learned from Poland.