Thursday, February 27th, 2025
The RTR Conference 2025, held in Brussels from 11-13 February, brought together 600 transport and logistics experts to discuss the latest research and innovations in road transport. On 12 February, the SARIL and ReMuNet projects participated in Session 12: “Sustainable and resilient freight transport and long-distance logistics”, moderated by Paola Chiarini (European Commission, DG MOVE) and Isabelle Schnell (Volvo Group).
The session featured five EU-funded projects SARIL (Sustainability and Resilience for Infrastructure and Logistics Networks), ReMuNet (Resilient Multimodal Freight Transport Networks), TRACE (Integration and Harmonisation of Logistics Operations), SETO (Smart Enforcement of Transport Operations) and KEYSTONE (Knowledgeable, Comprehensive, and Fully Integrated Smart Solution for Resilient, Sustainable, and Optimised Transport Operations).
Key takeaways:
Balancing resilience and sustainability
Supply chains need to be both resilient and sustainable, but traditional resilience strategies, such as infrastructure reinforcement and redundancy, often increase emissions and resource use. SARIL and ReMuNet explore alternative strategies, such as synchromodality, data-driven risk management, and collaboration, that increase resilience without compromising or even enhancing sustainability.
Data: a critical enabler for resilient logistics
One of the strongest messages of the session was that a lot of data that is collected and could be extremely valuable to improve resilience of the transport system is just wasted. Data sharing and valorization is extremely valuable and can serve to anticipate, identify and mitigate disruptions. Many companies and infrastructure operators collect valuable data, but a lack of accessibility and interoperability prevents its full use. This is not only about unforeseen circumstances, but sometimes infrastructure also maintenance and upgrading works are not visible to all logistics stakeholders hence they are unable to replan. Both SARIL and ReMuNet advocate for data spaces, AI-driven analytics, and digital twins to enable visibility for more proactive and responsive supply chain management.
Synchromodality and Physical Internet as a solution
Both projects highlighted the potential of using synchromodality and physical internet, core concepts of ALICE’s Roadmap to the Physical Internet, to improve both efficiency and resilience. Being able to dynamically adapt transport modes in response to disruptions, allows companies to reduce delays, cut costs, and reduce emissions. Road transport is the most responsive mode and therefore, proper connection of transportation modes supports intermodality, otherwise, operators prefer to just use road transport to reduce the disruptions impact.
Insights from SARIL and ReMuNet projects
SARIL: decision-support tools for resilient and sustainable logistics
SARIL (Sustainability and Resilience for Infrastructure and Logistics Networks) is developing decision-support tools to help logistics operators, transport authorities, and policymakers better anticipate and mitigate disruptions. The project integrates:
At RTR 2025, Dr. Corinna Kopke (Fraunhofer EMI) presented SARIL’s vision:
A system is resilient and sustainable if it uses minimal resources to withstand and recover from disruptions.
She highlighted a key challenge in logistics planning: while some resilience strategies, such as infrastructure robustness and asset redundancy, can improve supply chain continuity, they often come at the cost of increased emissions and resource consumption. In contrast, greater visibility, collaboration, and synchromodality contribute to both sustainability and resilience, providing a more effective long-term solution.
ReMuNet: AI-driven optimisation for synchromodal transport
The ReMuNet (Resilient Multimodal Freight Transport Networks) focuses on using real-time data and AI to improve route optimisation and decision-making in synchromodal transport networks.
Key elements include:
John von Stamm (RWTH Aachen University) presented the growing economic impact of supply chain disruptions, sharing figures on the increasing frequency and cost of such events across the Eurozone. He also highlighted key opportunities identified through ReMuNet, particularly in data capture and infrastructure monitoring, which could provide valuable insights into disruption patterns and mitigation strategies. However, he noted a significant barrier to progress: much of this critical data remains inaccessible to stakeholders, limiting its potential for enhancing resilience.
Both SARIL and ReMuNet align with ALICE’s Physical Internet vision, which advocates for a systematic approach to resilience and sustainability. By leveraging data sharing, digitalisation, and multimodal logistics, these projects contribute to an integrated, efficient, and adaptive freight transport network.
As supply chains face increasing climate, geopolitical, and economic disruptions, the solutions developed by SARIL and ReMuNet offer a path towards a more resilient and sustainable European logistics system.