Entrepreneurship – Faced with the challenges of environmental protection, how can we encourage a change in the mode of transportation?
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Precisely in order to promote this, the association AI Cargo Foundation, founded after the work of HUB France IA and which offers technological solutions for the decarbonization of the sector, launched the Call d’aiR program.
Project built on user requirements
Unfortunately, it is too often that projects that seem relevant and useful remain only in draft form because they are not adapted to the real needs of potential users. Appel d’aiR, in a more effective approach, decided to listen to users to identify their needs related to the modal shift and provide joint solutions.
It seems first of all that in order to be used by shippers/commissioners and offered by operators, both rail and river transport must be able to provide a certain number of guarantees. Because if shippers/commissioners have to ensure adequate frequency and repetition; operators need volumes that each shipper/commissioner’s flows cannot achieve on their own. ” The challenge is therefore to convince shippers/forwarders to combine their transport, so that they combine their shipments on the same means of transport. But this is counterintuitive for many of them, due to competition or trade secrets » points out Bernard Guilbot, director of the Appel d’aiR program.
Provide specific and customized solutions
This common use of means of transport is, however, a sine qua non condition for the development of modal change. Appel d’aiR has therefore developed the sovereign application Cumulus, which allows every shipper/commissioner to mark the place of departure and arrival for free, and above all completely anonymously and securely. ” Our positioning as a neutral trusted third party, as it is associative and financed by energy saving certificates, allows to reassure shippers/commissioners while answering another problem: the optimization of flows and counterflows. » adds Bernard Guilbot. Many trains and ships run partially empty on the way back, and often completely empty on the way back, which is a deviation from both an ecological and an economic point of view. By allowing some predictability in terms of repetition, frequency and volume, operators can allocate the necessary resources and invest accordingly.
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Appel d’aiR aims to achieve a modal shift of two billion tonnes/km by 2025.
Faced with a massive increase in demands, the use of artificial intelligence is essential to identify predictive scenarios and achieve effective solutions. In addition, artificial intelligence makes it possible to classify different types of goods, not all of which can be transported together. ” Promoting the modal shift in itself enables the reduction of CO2 emissions. But our approach goes further, because while providing operators with the security of business volume, we also encourage them to make the investments needed to decarbonize their vehicles, especially the transition to electric or hydrogen fuels » concludes Bernard Guilbot.
More information: www.aicargofoundation.org